


An Imposter on the A.U.S. Darwin

by Viandemoisie



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Amputation, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Fire, Gen, Murder Mystery, Mystery, Science Fiction, Space Flight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:56:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 75,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26899303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viandemoisie/pseuds/Viandemoisie
Summary: The A.U.S. Darwin, a scientific exploration space ship, is finishing up a reconnaissance mission in the Theta system. The crew is composed of:- Captain K. White;- Science Officer J. Red;- Communications Officer B.B. Purple;- Medical Officer K. Pink;- Humanities Officer A. Orange;- Navigation Officer Y. N. Green;- Pilot Y. Blue;- Engineer T. Yellow.Upon completing their mission and recovering Foreign Object Theta-14 (F.O.Θ.14), the crew prepares for a jump back towards planet Terra, home. However, the mission goes sideways when the ship's systems are tampered with and blood gets spilled. Tension rises within the cramped space vessel as crewmates are violently murdered and everyone becomes a suspect...
Comments: 63
Kudos: 74





	1. The Crew of the A.U.S. Darwin.

**I**

_ November 6th, 2135, A.U.S. Darwin _

_ -Captain’s Log- _

_ Today we implanted a robotic probe on Theta-3 and retrieved Foreign Object Theta-14, accomplishing the last of our objectives within the Theta Solar System. Medical Officer K. Pink and Science Officer J. Red led the ground party on Theta-3 and located F.O. _ _ Θ.14 approximately 26 kilometers away from where the computer simulation had guided us, which could be attributed to a calculation error by the A.U.S. computer (highly unlikely) or  _ _ F.O. _ _ Θ.14 could have been moved (or moved by itself, albeit highly unlikely as well). We have not encountered any life forms on the planet, however the environment surrounding the landing site could preclude previous terraforming from an unknown source, further surveys of the planet’s ground necessary.  _

_ We are hoping to receive communications from the probe within the next ten hours. _

_ We are currently on our way towards the CSC7 Asteroid, where we will resupply and drop cargo at the mining station, before making our way back to Planet Terra.  _

_ Captain K. White, Out.  _

* * *

Captain White walked out of his cabin after recording his daily log, then moved to the cafeteria where some of his crewmates were already eating. Pink and Red were still in decontamination. Pilot Yama Blue, Navigation Officer Y.N. Green and Engineer Toine Yellow were still charting the ship’s course in preparation for the jump to CSC7. Communications Officer B.B. Purple and Humanities Officer A. Orange were in the cafeteria, which especially felt oversized with only three crewmates in the room.

Captain White had his usual smile as he waved at the two crewmates, who happily invited him to join them at their table. He dropped his platter next to Officer Purple and happily munched on a loaf of rehydrated bread.

“So, what’s up Captain?” asked Orange, slowly rotating her chopstick in the broth of her ramen noodles. “We got the F.O.?”

“Spick and Span,” answered White, with his signature grin. “However, there is a problem with the retrieved artifact…” His smile slowly vanished.

Orange and Purple watched him in silence for a few seconds, tension rising slowly in the room. Captain White watched them in turn, a serious air taking hold of his cleanly shaved face.

“The Foreign Object is… kinda ugly. It’s an Ugly Foreign Object. It’s an-”

“If you say U.F.O. I swear I will punch you, I don’t give a fuck about your rank,” Purple said, as White’s grin crept back and the two crewmate realized the implied wordplay.

The doors opened as Engineer Yellow joined the group, wiping his brow with a cloth rag.

“Yellow, what are you doing here?” said Doctor Orange, with an apprehensive tone.

“Engines are running smooth, my job is done for the day, I wanted to come chill with you,” replied Yellow, already ordering a meal from the food printer.

“Sure, that’s sweet, but I’d prefer if we didn’t fucking die because you left the engines to come steal some of my ramens again. You were in the engine room for half an hour, I doubt your daily job is done. Blue and Green are still charting courses, how could you be done already?”

Yellow sat next to Orange, in front of the captain and went on with his explanation with his mouth full of proteins: “This ship *munch* is equipped with high-end engines, much more advanced than the shit we had on our previous assignment. They mostly run themselves with the ship’s Brain. Honestly I don’t even need to be in the engine room unless there’s a major problem. *munch* Which there is none at the moment, so I can come here and chill.”

A beeping sound called White’s attention. His watch was alerting him that decontamination was done, which would mean Pink and Red would soon join them in the cafeteria. To his surprise, it was actually Green and Blue who reached the cafeteria.

Yellow, while stealing noodles from Orange’s bowl, pointed at their colleagues entering the room. “See, they’re done too. This ship’s Brain is so efficient, we could almost type “Terra” and we’d be back home without needing to touch anything else.”

As Blue and Green sat down, Pink and Red entered the cafeteria, reuniting the whole crew in one room. Captain White got up and joined them at the food printer, congratulating them on the recovery as he typed a code into the beverage dispenser. He summoned eight flutes of champagne which he brought back to the table, to celebrate the crew’s accomplishment.

“You should be proud of yourselves, every one of you. We are only the third human expedition to travel within this solar system. Less than twenty pairs of boots have walked on planets within this system and today was especially important because we were the first expedition to land on Theta-3. Our robotic probe should gather a number of fascinating data within the next fifteen years and maybe one day there might be a viable colony on the planet!”

“Captain! Captain! Did you mention in your log that we named the probe Space Horsegirl?”

Captain White, his champagne glass still held up, sighed. “You voted on that name, yes, however I did tell you at the beginning of the vote that the probe already has an official A.U.S. code, so no I have not mentioned the name ‘Space Horsegirl’ in my official captain’s log which gets reported to the offices of my superiors back on Terra’s A.U.S. Headquarters.”

There was a moment of silence.

“However, while no one looked, I did scribble ‘Space Horsegirl’ on the underside of the probe with my captain’s pen.”

The room erupted in warm laughter and as the crew was about to toast the captain, Blue spoke: “Okay, so I got a confession, I also wrote the name ‘Space Horsegirl’ on the underside of the probe while I was alone with it, except actually I carved it with Red’s tungsten point.”

Blue then pulled out a metallic tool from her pocket, which Red grabbed while exclaiming “There it was! I’ve been looking for it for two days!”

The crew lifted their glass and toasted for the mission, with a special toast for Space Horsegirl. Once everyone had eaten to their heart’s contents, Orange went and grabbed a few packs of cards from the utility closet. The group played a few hands of Queen of Clubs, but before long other crewmates went and picked other games from the closet and the gang split into smaller groups.

The ship's computerized voice called Blue and Green back to the piloting deck, interrupting their game and sending Orange and Yellow to join another table while they went and investigated what the piloting issue was. The captain, giving his poker hand to Yellow despite the engineer's insistence that he didn't know how to play and didn't want to learn the rules, exited the cafeteria and tagged along with the pilot and the radar tech. Thus, White, Blue and Green reached the ship's cockpit to investigate why the Brain was acting up.

"See here, Captain, the road is not clear." Green tapped on one of the many screens at her workstation while explaining the issue. "The Brain has finished coursing the itinerary and observing the road ahead. There's a celestial body, relatively small, maybe a planetoid, right on the way between us and CSC7, at the edge of the Theta system. We gotta wait for it to move onto its orbit before letting our ship jump, or else we'll impact and become shredded cheese."

"How long will we be stationary then?" Asked the captain, his voice presenting nary a shroud of anxiety.

"I don't know, like a month?" Answered Blue, who, from the look Green gave her, obviously had guessed a time table that was completely wrong.

"The fuck, no. Don't listen to her, Captain. Wait time's more gonna be one or two days."

"Perfect," exclaimed Captain White, with a satisfied look, "we should still be comfortably within the acceptable uncertainties of our schedule."

On that issue completed, the three crewmates returned to the cafeteria, joining the rest. Many drinks were had on that evening.

. . .


	2. "It appears that we have an imposter among us."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theft! Sabotage!

**II**

_ November 7th, 2135, A.U.S. Darwin _

_ -Captain’s Log- _

_ Foreign Object Theta-14 has gone missing. I would hate to think that a member of the crew tampered with the ship's cargo, but unless the object can move itself, someone was in the cargo bay during the night, opened the sealed container and moved F.O. _ _ Θ.14. I might even be inclined to the fantasy of the object moving by itself if it wasn't for the fact that last night's security recordings for the cargo bay are missing from the Brain's archive. Someone moved  _ _ F.O. _ _ Θ.14 and then made sure that we wouldn't catch a glimpse of the event. I am sending a request to A.U.S. Headquarters for more information on what we are dealing with, as the 'Need to Know' protocol has left me with abysmal knowledge of the artefact we are dealing with. I don't even know if there is a considerable monetary value attributable to the object that would warrant a member of the crew turning on us and committing theft. _

_ I have travelled with this crew for almost six years now and I trust each and every one of them with my life, which makes the current events even harder to bear. I intend to interview the crew, starting with Science Officer J. Red and Medical Officer K. Pink, as they are the two who were in contact with the artifact while down on the planet. It is with- _

* * *

A deep rumbling shook the ship, interrupting Captain White in the middle of his log. The emergency red light suddenly lit up throughout the ship's common areas and hallways. 

"ALERT. REACTOR MALFUNCTION. ALERT. REACTOR MALFUNCTION. ALERT. REACTOR MALFUNCTION…"

The alert system kept going on repeat. 

* * *

_ The ship is currently in alert mode because of a reactor malfunction, so I will end the log here. _

_ Captain K. White, Out. _

* * *

A loud voice coming from the hallway outside White's cabin matched the ship's alert system in tone and volume.

"YES. I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TEN TIMES. I'M ON MY GODDAMN WAY."

White looked out his door only to see Yellow rushing through with his toolbox, in direction of the ship's reactor. Without hesitation, he followed him towards the reactor room. 

“What appears to be the problem, Yellow?”

“Reactor malfunction. I don’t know any more than you, based on what our very loud alarm system keeps repeating, YES I KNOW REACTOR MALFUNCTION STOP SCREAMING FOR FUCK’S SAKE.” Yellow kept his brisk pace, bending his head slightly to be closer to White’s ear, trying to be heard over the ship’s speakerphones. “Anyway, the ship’s energy source is a highly advanced machine with thousands of moving parts, so there are maybe as many possible causes for the malfunction as there are stars in the Universe!”

White, screaming over the indeed very loud alarm system to be heard by his colleague: “I think you might be underestimating how many stars are in the Universe!”

When they finally reached the reactor room which was drenched in harsh pulsating red light, Yellow yelled and pointed White towards a console with a digital scanner, while he went on the opposite side of the room to a similar machine. Both crewmates pressed their palm unto the readers, which stopped the alert message. The ship suddenly felt much quieter and the only noise in the room now was the static hum of the energy source. The reactor was also the only remaining light source in the room.

“Is it done? Is the malfunction fixed?”

“Don’t be daft, Captain. We only shut down the alert. Now I gotta work on this and see what’s wrong with this thing.” He grabbed his headset from his pocket and spoke while looking around the room. “Brain, can you give me a diagnostic? See if there are multiple things causing the malfunction.”

The doors slid open as Green, Blue and Purple entered the room. In the dimly lit reactor room, Purple unhooked the small flashlight attached to her keychain.

“IS THE REACTOR FIXED?” Yelled Green, panicked.

The computerized voice of the Brain echoed through the room: “Diagnostic done. It appears the malfunction is located behind the electricity panel.”

Yellow, uttering a simple “That’s what I thought,” gazed at White with a concerned look. The other crewmates picked up on it and turned their head towards the captain, who suddenly felt a tingle of apprehension as he was covered by the spot of light from Purple’s flashlight.

“Wh- Why is everyone looking at me?”

Yellow took a few steps towards White and simply said: “Oh, it’s just that you’re standing right in front of the electric panel right now.”

The tension melted slightly, as White calmed down and moved to his left. “Oh, my bad. Here let me open that up for you.” He opened up the panel’s door and all five crewmates had a look inside.

“What happened here?” asked Green, while staring at a bunch of torn up wires. “Looks like a rat ate his way through the panel.”

“Not a rat,” warned the captain.

Yellow brought his gloved hand close to the exposed wire, then turned his head towards the others. “Someone tore these up,” he remarked. “The Brain put the ship in alert mode because this panel is juicing up the monitoring in this room. As well as…” He then silently pointed up at the inert neons.

“But we’re in the reactor room,” asked Green, “isn’t the reactor juicing up the monitoring or whatever?”

“The reactor produces the electricity we need, but then it’s sent throughout the ship to the electricity panels, which then power up the various devices in each room of the ship. So, yeah, the reactor powers up this panel, which then powers up the lights, computers, monitors, and anything else with an electric pulse. The wires were ripped up, which means the monitoring systems lost power, so now the ship doesn’t know if the reactor is working properly or not, hence the malfunction alert.”

“Sooo, the reactor is not malfunctioning?”

Yellow looked behind him at the reactor, which was still humming along without a hitch. “Seems not. But there’s no way for the Brain to know that if it can’t monitor it.”

The Captain, who had been silent for a while, inquired “How long until you get that fixed?”

“Not too long. Ten, fifteen minutes?”

“Alright. Do it. I’ll call a meeting for the crew in the cafeteria in thirty.”

* * *

Red sat at the end of a table, nervously tapping his foot. He looked around the room, inspecting the other crew members. Green, Blue and Orange were chatting next to the drink dispensers while also looking around nervously. Purple sat at the next table, fidgeting with her communicator. The doors opened, attracting the eyes of everyone in the room. Pink and White entered the room, Pink whispering to the captain with a concerned look. 

The captain called out everybody in the room, who then joined him at a table. “Yellow is finishing up the repairs in the reactor room, in the meantime I will bring everyone up to date.” He gave a quick look to Orange, Red and Pink, before continuing: “Someone has been in the reactor room and committed sabotage. It might have been a temporary distraction, or maybe they were trying to cause damage to the reactor. However, the damage was superficial and was inflicted on the room’s electrical circuit, rather than to the reactor itself.”

“So it’s someone who’s not familiar with the workings of the reactor,” added Orange.

“That is if we are discarding the distraction hypothesis,” critiqued Red. “They could be trying to stall us.”

“We do not know the intent of the saboteur, only the results of their action,” interrupted White. “However, we have to keep in mind the theft of  F.O. Θ.14 that occured last night. There could very much be a link between the two events. I have requested more information on the object from A.U.S. H.Q., but for now I believe our priority should be to find it, as it would give us the identity of the thief.”

Orange held up one hand, which caught the captain’s attention and as he paused his speech, she said: “Now that we’re caught up on the reactor mishap, shouldn’t we wait for Yellow before we continue with the rest of the meeting.”

White answered with silence, then looked at his wrist watch, then behind him towards the door. “He said it would take ten to fifteen minutes. He should be here by now.”

The group were getting fidgety and restless. Red watched as the captain got up from his chair, motioned Purple and Orange to follow him and the three of them walked out of the room. It didn’t take long for the remaining four to get up and follow in their footsteps.

As they walked, Pink came close to Red and she hushed to his ear: “Was it you?”

Red kept walking and glanced toward Green and Blue nearby. “I didn’t touch the reactor. I was with Purple and Green trying to recover last night’s footage when the alert went up.”

“No, that’s not…” she also glanced towards Green and Blue. “I meant, was it you who stole the object?”

“Of course not, I would never compromise the mission!” He felt as if his last words had definitely been heard by the other two crewmates. “Why would you think I’d do that? You know me.” He paused, before adding: “Was it you?”

“Wha- Me? No! I couldn’t, I don’t even know how the cameras work in this ship, you know how clumsy I am with technology. Anything outside of the Medbay might as well be alien tech.”

“What was it about ALIEN TECH?” gasped Green.

“Stop nosing around!” scoffed Blue.

The four of them then arrived in the hallway leading to the reactor. White, Purple and Orange were in the doorway and they could hear Yellow’s voice. 

“-additional damage inside, it took more time than I anticipated.”

“And are you finished now!?” yelled Orange.

“Yeah, yeah calm down I’m done. Let me pick up my tools.”

All eight crewmates were now reunited. As Yellow walked into the hallway with his toolbox, the gang stood in a circle, eyes glancing around and meeting each other.

Captain White took a quick look at every member of his crew, then with an eerie tone, he murmured: “Someone in this room is working against the crew. It appears that we have an imposter among us.”

* * *

Purple, Red, Yellow and White were in the security room. Purple, as communication officer, knew the ins and outs of a lot of the ship’s system. There was a chance she might be able to recover the lost video files from last night. She assumed the science officer and the ship’s engineer might be here for similar reasons. Then again, their knowledge of the ship’s system also meant that they were potentially responsible for the security breach. Purple turned in her chair, peering at the captain.

“Is there something, Purple?”

“Are you just gonna stand there like a scrutinizing lamppost, or are you gonna sit your ass down and help us here?”

Captain White staggered a little, before taking a chair next to Purple. 

“What can I do to help?”

“Red and Orange are trying to see if they can recover any deleted data, I’m focusing on the comings and goings.”

“Comings and goings?”

“The missing video recordings are between 1h13 and 1h50, so we need to check if anyone was near the security room or the cargo bay close to these times. The security cameras were offline but we still had door sensors on.”

“So we can see who entered the cargo bay, that settles it,” he proclaimed. However, as soon as he opened the record, his smile faded. “Wait, it just says when the doors were opened, not who passed them.”

“I know, the identification was turned off at the same time as the video recordings, we only have the electrical inputs from when the doors opened and closed. The best we can do right now is identify at what time exactly the object was taken.”

“Well even then, the door opened on at least six occasions during the time period.”

“Some people were still up and drinking at 2 o’clock last night.”

White sighed. “And I guess if we interview the crew, we’re gonna get a lot of ‘I was too drunk to remember.’ Fantastic.”

Purple looked behind her at Red and Yellow who were silently troubleshooting. “You find anything?”

“Space Horsegirl has found a rock shaped like a penis.” 

“We’ve saved a screenshot of it and sent it in the group chat,” added Red.

“What the fuck, guys, we’re trying to find out who’s messing up with the ship.”

Yellow threw his hands into the air. “Come on, we know everyone here, none of us would try to backstab the crew. I’m sure whoever did it, it was an honest mistake.”

An honest mistake? Purple couldn’t help but think that Yellow’s lenient commentary was a tad suspicious. She wasn’t alone, as quickly she noticed White’s eye darting towards her, as if he was trying to mentally tell her ‘you believe what that guy is saying?’

But then Red added: “Yeah, I mean, I’ve known all of you for years, I highly doubt the recent events were made out of malice.”

Hearing Red support Yellow’s point led Purple to believe that there was some weight to the idea. She knew all the crewmates and trusted them.

White stopped typing. “Oh hell,” he gasped. “What if there’s two of them.”

“What?” Red exclaimed.

“I mean, you two are supporting each other’s argument and that’s eerily suspicious. I’m not accusing you of anything, mind you, but it made me think that maybe there’s more than one crew member in on it.”

Purple’s eyes lit up. “What if one person stole it while the other deactivated the security system?”

A loud metallic sound interrupted the discussion. The four crewmates turned their attention towards the door of the security room. Yellow stood up and carefully approached the large metal door. As he got close enough to be detected by the door’s sensor, they all watched as the door… didn’t budge.

“It should open automatically.” He waved his hand up at the sensor above the door, to no avail.

Purple stood up and joined him next to the door. “Do you think the door system was sabotaged?” She waved her hand in front of the sensor. Again, no outcome. “Someone outside this room has locked us in.”

“Not necessarily,” replied Yellow. “We’re in the security room, someone in here could have done it. If they know how to activate the lock system, they could have done it from a terminal in here, they could even have programmed it in advance.”

“Great. Do you know how to activate the lock system?” asked Purple.

“Hum. Well, yes. I mean, computer engineering is kinda my specialty.”

“Well then. Do your thing.”

“My thing?”

“Unlock the fucking door!”

Yellow hurriedly moved back to a terminal and opened the door menu. Red and Purple watched over his shoulders to see what he was doing. “Alright let’s look… Oh, it appears the lock is localized. Someone locked us in and I believe the order came from outside the room. Let me just...” Yellow typed up a bunch, navigated through the door security menus. 

The captain sitting at another terminal, put on his headset. “Brain, send this message to everybody outside this room. Hello, this is Captain White. We have been locked into the security room, apparently by somebody outside.”

Purple took a glance at the captain who was now sporting a distressed expression, as if he was in pain, which was understandable considering she could hear the loud voices echoing in his headset from the other end of the room. But then, White had a look of relief on his face as the headset turned silent, the yelling subsiding and freeing his ear of pain. His expression quickly soured as he realized the yelling had stopped because the communications had been cut. He looked at Purple, meeting her eyes. Without exchanging words, they stood up and went to the door, waiting for Yellow to unlock it.

“Hurry up man, we have to get to the communication room.”

Yellow looked up from his terminal, with a dumbfounded expression. “What? Why?”

“Communications have been disabled. We’re cut off from everyone else in the ship.”

“Oh, yeah that would do it.” He focused back on the computer and within a few seconds the door let out a *click*, leading to Purple and White waving their hands at the sensor. As the door opened, Red stood up and ran behind them as they made their way towards the communication room. 

“Keep an eye on the cameras!” yelled the captain at Yellow, while continuing to run towards their new objective.

The trio quickly reached the communication room. Purple’s expertise as a communications officer helped them greatly, as she sat in the big chair and accessed the communication terminal. 

Red, one hand posed on the back of the big chair, watched the monitor intently. “How did this happen? Did they cut off communications here or from a distant terminal?”

“Please just let me fix the problem, we’ll find the source after.”

“Oh, sorry. Do your thing.”

“Thaaank you.”

Red and White nervously watched the monitor as Purple moved from menus to menus, until she found the problem. With the flick of a button, she ended up rebooting the ship’s communications. After one minute, the captain’s headset, which was back on his belt, suddenly babbled as the voices of crewmates were back. Instead of putting it back in his ear, White put the headset on speaker mode.

“I CAN’T FIND BLUE I THINK SHE MIGHT BE THE SABOTEUR!”

“I’M STANDING RIGHT HERE NEXT TO ORANGE, SHUT UP GREEN!”

Purple, already opening up the microphone of the main communication module, cut off everyone else’s input and commanded them to shut the hell up and be civil.

“Communications are back up. Whoever cut off the wires at the reactor room appears to have messed up the main console here too, after locking us up in the security room. We need to know who was with who in the past five minutes.”

“Hum, look, Purple. As the captain, I think I should be the one who, you know.”

“Please sit your ass down, Captain.”

“But… Yes ma’am,” he conceded, sitting on a chair nearby.

“Alright. I was locked-up in the security room with Yellow, Red and White. None of use could have fucked up communication. Apparently, Blue and Orange are together right now. How long have you two been together?”

“About thirty minutes,” replied Blue. “Orange came to meet me on the piloting deck.”

“What were you two doing.”

“... I wanted her opinion on a new episode of the animated show we’re watching.”

“YOU WATCHED THE NEW EPISODE OF  SUIKYŪ!! WITHOUT ME?”

“Yeah, our radar dish picked up the download last night.”

Purple interrupted the conversation: “You’ll get plenty of time to talk about your anime later. Now, Pink, where were you?”

“Greenhouse. With Red helping you in security, I picked up some of his tasks.”

“I can vouch for that,” added Red, who was currently sitting next to White. “I did ask her to fill out some of my tasks in the greenhouse.”

“Alright, Yellow check up on that.” She paused for a while. “Actually, why don’t you check the video recordings to see who was in communication before us.

A single clap resonated behind her, which brought her attention towards White, who simply stated: “Yellow is in the security room right now. The first thing I would have done is ask Yellow to check the cameras. But now at least we know that Orange and Blue are up to date on their soccer show.”

Red whispered: “Water polo, actually, but whatever.”

“Ok, no need to be so fucking sassy right now White, we’re all on edge right now, don’t add shit on the pile.”

“That’s rich coming from someone who openly disrespect rank.”

“Dis- Rank? We might have a thief and or a saboteur on the ship, you could be it and rank doesn’t alleviate you from suspicions.”

“Oh, you’re suspecting me now?”

“Maybe. You’re telling us that you don’t know what the foreign object does, but if anyone has information on it, it would be ‘the highest ranked’ officer, wouldn’t it.”

White stood up. Purple stood up. They were both eyeing each other, trying to gauge the other’s trustworthiness.

Red, still sitting, brought their attention by simply stating: “Why don’t we just ask Yellow what he’s seen, so we can at least know the identity of the person who locked us in security?”

Both looked down at Red, then at each other. Purple was the first to speak: “What if Yellow is the saboteur. What if he locked us in and fucked up comm from the terminal in security?”

“Could he do that?” inquired White.

“I don’t know, let’s ask him. Yellow? What do you have for us. It better be a recording of someone other than you crippling our comms or else we might have to suspect you.”

Silence.

“Yellow?” She looked at the captain. “Looks like our engineer has stage fright. Let’s go make him sing.”

Anxiously, Red, Purple and White walked towards the security room.

White, taking the lead, started berating the engineer before the door opened: “Yellow, you better show us those recooo-oh no…”

His voice vanished as the door opened and he looked inside. Purple and Red walked up next to him, eyes forward. Purple brought her hands up over her mouth to cover a gasp.White scanned around the room, his stern expression slowly turning into a mortified face.

Red, his mouth agape for a few seconds, eventually spouted: “Well, at least we know Yellow was not the imposter.” 

* * *


	3. Emergency Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Due to the horrifying recent turn of event, Captain White has called in an emergency meeting...

**III**

The crewmates were justifiably on edge. After seeing the grim scene in the security room, the captain had called an emergency meeting. As he stood in front of the central table in the cafeteria, he glanced at the six other people, lingering a bit on each face. Purple did the same thing, methodically studying each individual. She focused on their expression, trying to see if they were afraid, angry, mournful, disheartened. She was particularly drawn to the lines of sight, curious to see which crewmember everyone was staring at.

She noticed Green and Blue were nervously looking at each other a lot. Orange looked straight forward, slumped in her chair, looking numb and morose. Pink seemed to often look back at Red. Red acted a lot like White and her, inspecting the other crewmates, however he was spending more time looking towards the four crewmates that hadn’t been in the communications room. Until he met Purple’s inquisitive gaze, upon which he frowned and looked away.

White held up a blood-soaked fire axe. When everybody looked at him, he threw the axe on the table, before speaking up. “When we arrived in the security room, Red, Purple and I, we… The scene was horrendous. Somebody came into the room with this axe,” he pointed at the weapon, “and killed our fellow crewmate and friend, Yellow. With a goddamn fire axe. And then, once the gruesome murder was done, they lacerated the security terminals, chopping and hacking the computers, destroying most of our security system.”

Silence. No one dared speak, yet everyone seemingly expected someone to open up. It was tempting to stay mute, to ignore the events in hopes that it was all just a nightmare. Yet Purple knew she was awake, she knew the situation they were in was real. Someone in this room was a murderer and it was woefully possible that they could kill again. “We have to find the murderer before they kill again.”

“Or murderers, if there’s more than one,” added Red.

“Let’s start with what we know for sure,” advised Purple. “I was in the communication room with Red and White. Yellow was still alive when we left the security room, thus it has to be one of you four.”

Orange slowly moved her gaze towards Purple. “You four? Do you seriously believe that I am a suspect here? That I would have murdered Yellow?”

“Honestly, I simply cannot believe anyone on this ship would commit murder at all. Even less so against a member of the crew. I don’t understand why someone here would do this. You, Pink, Green and Blue were all really close to Yellow and frankly I don’t think anyone here would have the audacity, the effrontery to commit murder.”

Blue, mouth slowly open, slowly lifted a hand with a finger pointing upward. “I mean, Orange does believe that some murders are legitimate.”

Orange snapped: “Really? You believe I would kill Yellow because I think the death of violent dictators can sometimes be justified? That’s messed up. And by the way, Red agrees with me!”

Red’s eyes went wide as the crew turned towards him. “Well, there’s a difference between murdering a close friend and executing Adolf Hitler. But I think neither Orange nor Pink were the killers.”

Blue was taken aback. Purple, curious, inquired further: “Why not Orange or Pink, specifically?”

“Orange is the Humanities Officer. Her whole job description is to understand and analyze human nature and history to help the ship’s captain make the most ethical decisions possible. She is equal part historian, philosopher and psychologist and Humanities Officer is a title that is not received easily. It’s one of the most vetted positions in the A.U.S. and is only given to people of strong moral fiber. Same thing for Pink, the Medical Officer. On top of the Hippocratic Oath, it is a profession seeked by people who aim to do good and save lives.”

Blue interrupted him: “So, because of my job description, I’m more apt to murder my friends? Have you considered fucking yourself?”

Green chided in: “Yeah! That’s bullshit!”

“You’re the Science Officer, right? There’s no moral aspect to your job, isn’t there? Doesn’t that make you a suspect as well?”

“I was with Purple and White during the murder, how could I have done it?”

“Someone said there might have been multiple culprits,” replied Blue. “If we use your messed up argument, none of you have ethically strong jobs. You experiment, she talks, he complains.”

“Well I don’t fully agree with you on me and White’s job. The Science Officer and the Captain are jobs that do require a strong moral fiber in many ways…”

“Oh, ok. “Me and White’,” emphasized Purple. “First of all, thank you for throwing me under the bus like that, it’s much appreciated. Second, you meant ‘White and I’, dumbass.”

“Wh- Why are you piling on me for? You were with me during the murder, you know I’m innocent.”

“Or maybe she knows you, her and the captain are all in on it and you two are acting mean against each other to throw us off the trail!” Green stood up and pointed as she made her accusation, but when she saw everyone else staring at her, she muttered “sorry…” and sat back down.

White bowed forward a little, posing his fist on the table next to the bloody axe. “As much as I would like to just press a button and be done with this horrible turn of events, we have to find who murdered Yellow before they strike again. I know Red’s observations may seem crude to some people, but right now we have a dead friend and almost no hints on his killer, so every argument must be taken into account. Now, I understand that most arguments will feel like personal attacks, but we are just all really anxious to find the wrongdoer.” He paused, letting the crew breathe for a few seconds. “But nevertheless, having been with Red and Purple I have to suspect at least one of the remaining four.”

Purple corroborated White’s point: “Blue and Orange were together, but no one can confirm the whereabouts of Pink and Green. It could have been Pink, Green, or a team of Blue and Orange working together.”

“Or it could be the ‘high horse’ trio all working together.” Orange didn’t even make eye contact as she pointed that out, she was just slowly shaking her head.

“Don’t stick me in the uptight corner with these two,” muttered Purple. “Furthermore, I know that we were in the communication room, so even if you insult us there’s definite proof that none of us is a murderer.”

“Oh, bullshit.”

“The comms had been sabotaged, that we know. I fixed them, unless someone else has proof to contradict me or wants to claim they fixed the communication?” She waited five seconds. “So, no one else is claiming my action, that’s good. Blue and Orange were apparently on the navigation deck, Pink says she was in the greenhouse, we still haven’t heard any alibi from Green.”

“Me? I didn’t murder anyone!”

“Then where were you during the murder?”

“I was in Storage!”

Purple looked up at White, then at Red, then back at Green. “On our way from Communications back to Security, we passed by the Storage Room. We didn’t see you.”

“Be- I- Because I was hiding! There was the sabotage and no one answered me because communications were down and I heard loud hasty footsteps so I hid behind a box!”

“That’s strange. If the footsteps were us, then that would be when we were walking back to Security. The comms were back online. Why didn’t you call people to ask who was walking towards Storage?”

Red, nervously fidgeting with his communicator, interjected: “It could have been us walking by the first time when we were on our way towards Communication from Security. Green how many times did people pass by you when you were in Storage.”

“Hum, huh, once. I heard people walk in the room and I hid and then when the communications were back up I was in the Cafeteria, hoping to see someone and I was panicking and then we heard the news for Yellow and Captain called this meeting.”

“You were already in the Cafeteria. That’s convenient.”

“Why? Why is it convenient?”

“I’m not accusing you of anything, but if you did commit the murder, the timeline you gave us is pretty suspicious.”

“What!” Green looked around, as if to silently ask for support, but no one budged.

White had an inquisitive look as he motioned one hand towards Red. “I’d like to know what your timeline theory is.” 

“Simple. If, and I say if, Green is the murderer, what happened was, she went to communication, hacked them, then hid in Storage, presumably with the axe already, and by the way it would be a good idea to know which fire axe in the ship is missing. As we passed her by, hidden behind a box, she rushed to Security, killed Yellow and the security terminals, leaving the axe embedded in Yellow’s back. She knew that when we came back, we would call an emergency meeting, so she went directly to the cafeteria so that when everyone walked there, we wouldn’t see from which direction she arrived.”

“That’s a nice story,” replied Orange, as Green stammered and teared up from the accusation. “But we can literally do that with everyone and it would sound believable. Here let me try. Purple walks out of security, grabs the axe, gives it to you, she and White walk out and hack the door, leaving you alone with yellow. You kill him, they go to Communication, stop everything, wait a bit, start it up again, argue on the phone, then walk to Security where they open the door and include you back into the group so that you can lie for each other.”

“Preposterous.”

“Preposterous? Really, Red?”

“Absolutely. If we were working the three of us as saboteurs and murderers, which we aren’t, but I’ll humor your story, it wouldn’t be a sensible plan. Sending the two of them alone towards Communication would arouse suspicion now during the meeting if someone had seen them, because then I wouldn’t have an alibi and you all know I’m too selfish to take the fall for two murderers so of course it can’t be me, and thus it is not any of us three.”

“Wow okay, selfishness is part of a strong moral fiber now?”

“No, but honesty is. I know my flaws and share them openly with the crew, I believe that to be ethically sound.”

“Whatever, personality traits are notwithstanding right now because yesterday I would have said that obviously no one on this ship could commit murder, especially not of a crewmate, and yet Yellow lies dead. So excuse my if I roll my fucking eyes when you say shit like ‘of course it can’t be me’. There is no more ‘of course’ anything because one of you is a fucking killer. Also stop being such a dickhead, in the timeline exemple it could have been Purple or White that did the killing.”

“Nonsense, Purple fixed the comms and White headset was activated when they argued, if anyone listened then they would have heard them, and maybe me too but I didn’t yell unlike them so it’s possible the headset didn’t pick up.”

“I heard them,” defended Green. “They were definitely together after communications came back in.”

“Me too,” added Pink. “They were arguing about rank.”

White smacked his lips. “Pink.” She looked up at him, making eye contact. “You said you were in the Greenhouse. Can you describe your timeline before the meeting.”

“Yeah, I was in the Greenhouse pretty much the whole time. The leaf cleaning arm has been broken for three week, Red told me, so he needs to pick up leaves and put them in the compost bin. He had made a request to Yellow for it to be repaired but apparently the repair was really complicated for the amount of work the arm did.”

“Yellow’s words,” precised Red.

“Was what Red told me, so I went there to pick up leaves and also do the daily check up on the greenhouse, making sure that everything was in order to avoid everyone in the ship from suffocating. I got to the Greenhouse at about the same time your lot reached the Security Room, if I can trust what you said in the Cafeteria, when you said ‘We’re gonna go check out what we can find in the hard drives of the Security Room.’ I got to the Greenhouse, did my task, I saw the dick rock pic in the group chat and not long after Captain sent his message informing us that you were locked up in security. I heard Blue and Green yelling in panic in my headset, but I also heard footsteps, someone was walking while their headset was on, maybe even jogging.”

Orange lifted a hand. “I do remember footsteps.”

“Yep,” Blue said.

“White had his headset on but no one else in our room did.”

“I don’t recall footsteps,” White admitted, “but mostly I was trying to shield my poor ears from the panicked shrieks. Pink, continue.”

Nervously, Pink continued her recalling of the events: “The voices stopped, and nobody answered my calls, so I put two and two together. I can understand why Green hid in Storage, I… I was terrified. Whoever was sabotaging the ship had now cut all communications? When I realized that the Communication Room is pretty close to the Greenhouse, I closed the doors and waited, but no one came to the Greenhouse. The comms came back on, Blue and Green yelled at each other and then White announced the murder and called the meeting. I keep thinking, I was alone and vulnerable. It could have been me.”

Orange interrupted her: “I don’t think so. They killed him because he was in the Security Room. I think the murderer mostly wanted to fuck up the security recordings and Yellow was unlucky enough to be in the room.” She looked down at her feet. “I don’t know which would be worse; If someone murdered him on purpose, or if they killed him nonchalantly to hide evidence.” 

“Orange? Blue? What is your timeline.”

“We went to Navigation after the first meeting this morning, stayed there until Yellow died, then we came here. I can corroborate Blue’s alibi, she can do mine.”

“You arrived here with Pink. When did you meet her?”

“Navigation is almost straight in front of the Greenhouse, so we saw the door when we got out. We were about to go to the Cafeteria when we saw the door open, Pink peeped out, saw us and ran up to us. We hugged and she said she had felt terrified all alone.”

“So, if we suspect Pink…” Purple assessed the Medical Officer’s testimony. “She went to the Greenhouse. She then would have to walk towards Security, lock our door; Walk back to the front end of the ship to get to Communication, which would be the footsteps heard on the comms; Cut the communications, then exit quickly; Get back to Security, kill Yellow; Get back to the Greenhouse and hide until the emergency meeting got called.”

“But,” interjected Red, “we passed through Storage from Security to Communication and back. Green was also supposedly hiding in Storage. If Pink had passed by the most direct, fastest route, she would have met us or Green would have seen her.”

“She could have passed through the Cafeteria.”

“I highly doubt she would have made it in time.” He got up and looked around the room, focusing on the hallways going out of the Cafeteria. “Brain, bring a projector over the table.”

The ship’s computer system activated a small magnetic projector at the other end of the room, which crawled up the wall onto the ceiling and then moved above the table.

“Put on a projection of the ship’s map, please.”

The Brain did as it was asked and a projection of the rooms and hallway covered the large table.

Purple got up and bent over the map, looking closely at the potential routes between Security and Communication. “There’s no way she could have made it in time without going through Storage, then she would have been spotted by either us or Green.”

“Green, which was supposedly hidden in Storage,” added Red. “She could have hidden until we passed, then go to Security and kill Yellow.”

“I would never kill anyone!” claimed Green.

“Neither would any of us,” answered Purple. “I suggest we do the same thought experiment for Blue and Orange.”

Red pointed on the map. “They started out in Navigation. If they are both in on it, that gives them a lot of leeway. One could go down to Communication and wait while the other passes through the Cafeteria; Locks us up in Security; Hide nearby; Once we unlock and move to Communication, she kills Yellow; Runs back to Navigation, where she meets the comms saboteur and they cover for each other.”

“I think the timing was peculiar.” Orange propped up. “Whoever went and killed Yellow somehow knew he was alone in the room. No one in this room could have fought all four of you, they waited for you three to come out. I strongly believe that one of you three, Red, Purple or White, were in on it and helped the murderer.”

“How would we? Communications were down, remember?”

“You planned it ahead then, Purple. Or White or Red or whatever. The goal was to leave the Security Room empty for the saboteur to break the hard drives. But maybe they considered one person was acceptable collateral damage.” She stared at Purple. “I’m betting you were in cahoots with the killer. You know how the comm system works, you could have given the killer enough clue to shut it off.”

“Half the crew have a PhD or more, the other half are all trained spacefaring professionals with technical knowledge. I’m sure they can figure out how to mess up a computer without my help.”

“So, as I was saying, your acolyte fucks up comms, maybe after locking you up in Security, unless of course you took care of that. And then you convince Red and White to fuck off with you to Communication while your subordinate goes in and kill Yellow.”

Purple scoffed. Orange shrugged. After a moment of nervous silence, Blue blurted out: “So, who did it? And, more importantly, what do we do about them?”

“Honestly, I don’t know anymore.” Purple looked defeated. She looked around the room and felt almost more confused now than before the meeting. “If the killer would just fess up that would be much appreciated.” 

The killer did not fess up.

The Captain, standing with his arms crossed, sighed deeply. “I say, we take a vote.”

“What? Vote on what?”

“Vote on who we think is the murderer. We shall decide then what to do.”

“No!” boomed Purple. “If we’re going to define who’s the murderer by vote, the very fucking least we could do is decide what we’re going to do before we vote. So, Captain, what will we do with the presumptive killer once we vote?”

“I think the prudent thing to do would be to quarantine them and search their room.”

“What the fuck,” muttered Orange.

“What was that?”

“I said, ‘What the fuck’. We’re going to just choose someone around the table and then what, dump their rights into the trash and lock them up?”

“It’s not-”

“Yes. It is. What if everyone votes for me? Who’s going to toss up my room and search through my drawers. You, captain? You’re going to frisk me and then rummage in my fucking panty drawer before locking me up so that the murderer can calmly stroll into my cell and murder me with an axe too?”

“No, that’s not…” The captain looked visibly uncomfortable.

“We’re probably not going to vote for you though,” remarked Red.

“You’re besides the point, dumbass. Whether it’s me, or Green or Pink, voting for who we think is the killer and then fucking them up is kind of a stupid idea.”

“But we do need to stop the killer.”

“And we don’t know who the fuck is the killer. I don’t think we should just kill the least popular person of the group.”

“We didn’t talk about killing the voted crewmate,” stated White, having regained his composure. “Only isolating them. Plus we do need to find the stolen artefact. I still think there is a link between the theft and the acts of sabotage. Yellow was killed in the Security Room, which was then destroyed, presumably so that we won’t know who stole the object. So yeah, I do believe searching the crew’s personal rooms could help us confirm the identity of the killer. If it helps you feel better, we can start with my private quarters.”

“Then, I propose we add an abstention option. We only quarantine someone if they get more votes than abstention.”

“Fair enough.”

Purple took out her communicator. “I can set up a private channel, then everybody can send their votes to the projector will show who got the most votes.”

“Make sure it shows each person’s vote,” demanded White.

Purple looked up at the captain. She knew that the way the crew would vote was an information in and of itself. Captain White was definitely curious to know each person’s suspicion. She wondered who he would vote for.

While waiting for the voting channel to be done, Green asked: “Shouldn’t we get a bit more debate time? I don’t feel like people had enough time to defend themselves.”

“I disagree, I think we have all the information we need,” responded Red. “Each one of you gave their version of the timeline, I think it’s pretty obvious which one of you commited the murder.”

“The way you’re saying it, it feels like you’re implying you’re gonna vote for me.”

“I guess we’ll see once the voting period is done.”

Purple was done with the voting application. As soon as they received the notification, they all grabbed their communicator and stared at their screen where the name of their colleagues appeared. Everyone voted in silence. Purple chose the abstention option, for she couldn’t in good conscience vote for any of her crewmates. She looked up to meet White’s gaze, who had voted almost instantly. Red, Pink, Green and Orange voted pretty quickly as well, but Blue seemed to take her time, watching the screen, then the crew, then the screen again. Finally, she clicked on the communicator and a beep came from the projector as every vote had been accounted for.

The crew looked at the projection on the table. 

Votes against Pink: Green.

Votes against Green: Pink, Red, White.

Abstentions: Purple, Orange, Blue.

Three votes against Green, tied with three abstentions. Green looked from person to person, sweating and babbling. “Wha- What does that mean? What’s going to happen to me.”

“Nothing,” the captain informed her. “You were tied with abstention, thus we will do nothing.”

“I can’t believe you voted for me,” fumed Pink.

“Really? You voted for me too bitch!”

“Yeah but we already defined that I didn’t have time to go from one end of the ship to the other unless I passed by the room you were supposedly hiding in and you would have seen me or heard me then, wouldn’t have you?”

Green looked at Pink blankly for a second and then got up. “I saw you, I heard you pass through Storage!”

“Really?” asked the captain. “You saw her pass through Storage? Why didn’t you give out this information earlier?”

“Because she’s lying!” yelled Pink.

“I’m not lying! I forgot to tell it earlier, but it was you! You passed through the Storage Room!”

“No, I didn’t. You didn’t hear me and you know it, because I stayed in the Greenhouse the whole time. You’re lying to us because you’re scared we’ll find out that you did kill Yellow.”

“It’s not true! It wasn’t me I swear!”

“Then why are you lying?” Pink looked at Green with a melancholic expression. “Why are you now so desesperatly trying to pin that murder on me? I would never have killed my friend and you know it.”

“I’m… I’m sorry Pink!” Green sobbed, holding her face in her hands.

“Green. Did you, or did you not see Pink passing through the Storage Room at the time of the murder?”

“I… I didn’t…”

“Then why did you lie to us?”

“I- I didn’t do it and now you think I did it but I didn’t and I wanted to put the suspicions on someone else because I don’t want to be locked up in a room alone for a horrible crime I didn’t do while a murderer walks around the ship.”

Purple got up and walked up to Green, sitting next to her and hugging her. “I don’t think you did it. Frankly, I wouldn’t think any of us capable of doing this. We need to stay on our toes because there is a murderer on board.” She looked up at White, animosity flaring in her eyes. “But tearing each other apart on baseless accusations is not gonna solve anything.”

White sighed. “As I said, I know it might come of as mean to some people to be accused, but we do have to face the facts.”

“You know, Captain, sometimes you seem to forget that your crew is made up of human beings. You could try a little empathy for a change.”

“I’m sorry, but emotions cloud rationality. We have to stay objective in this, as much as it pains me. If we let our feelings dictate the pace of the investigation, we might not find the murderer before they strike again.”

Red raised his hand, to which White motioned him to talk. “Now, what do we do? Three of us suspect Green but we don’t have definite proof that she did it, but do we still search private quarters? Do we try to repair Security?”

“First of all, I suggest we stay in groups. From now on, no one should move in the ship alone. During the day, we shall split into two groups. I propose Blue, Green, Red and Me for the first group, Purple, Pink and Orange for the second.”

“Woah woah woah, why these two groups?” Purple was indeed curious to hear White arguments for the team construction.

“I trust you and Red, because you were both with me during the events, so I wouldn’t keep all three of us in the same group. Having us split leaves at least one reasonable observer in each group. If Orange and Blue worked on the sabotage together, they should not be in the same team. Blue and Green being paired up is not about the murder, but about the fact that their job on the ship complement each other. If the ship needs to be piloted, it would be advantageous if they were already next to each other.”

“Okay, then what about night time?”

“I propose a curfew, each crewmate staying locked up in their own rooms. All the private rooms have internal locks and with the Security Room offline, it should be impossible, or at least very difficult, to hack the doors of the private quarters. Everyone should be safe in their room for now.”

“And what are the teams supposed to do now?”

“Well, the piloting team, consisting of Blue, Green, Red and me, is the team with the most technical and computer knowledge, so I propose we work Security. We will start with moving Yellow’s body to the Medbay, then we will return and attempt repairs of the security systems. We will try to get the cameras running back up again and if possible we’ll further investigate the murder of Yellow and also the hard drives, if they can be recovered, for informations on last night’s theft.

“Next, the…” he looked at Pink, Orange and Purple, trying to find them a fitting team name. “... the POP team, I think you should go to Communications. Purple, try to find how the comms sabotage first occurs, find a way to prevent it from happening again and then contact A.U.S. H.Q. about the murder. In your message you should also request further informations on F.O.Θ.14. If it is related to the murder, I want to know it.

“So, are we not going to ruffle through your room, captain?”

“In due time, Orange. I believe investigating and fixing the Security Room is the number one priority, contacting Terra is high up there as well, and I feel like the quarters search should be done by the whole crew as a full team, so we will do it once other more urgent matters are done. Now, I believe this meeting is adjourned.”

“One more thing,” said Red, locking eyes with the captain. “Should we get weapons?”

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Most of the weaponry is under lock and key in the Weapons Room and if someone decides to go on a killing spree, I’d rather they don’t have a laser cannon.”

On that note, the crewmates stood up, splitting into two teams. The Piloting team went left towards Security, while the POP team made its way right towards Communication. Purple looked back at the Piloting Team, meeting White’s gaze. Despite his apparent stern composure, she knew he was on edge and would do anything to find the murderer. Then again, most of the crew felt the exact same way.

As her group reached Communications, she sat in the big chair and brought her hands on the keyboard. Her hands were shaking. Someone, somewhere in this ship, was a murderer. It could be one of her closest friends. It could be someone in this very room. It could be anyone. What if they killed her next?

She chased the last thought away and turned her head back to see Pink and Orange, who were in the process of bringing chairs next to the main console. With them sitting on either side of her, they could all see the big screen and keep a watchful eye on each other.

* * *


	4. Team work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The seven remaining crewmates split into two teams.
> 
> The Piloting Team, consisting of Blue, Green, Red and White;
> 
> The POP Team, consisting of Pink, Orange and Purple.

**IV**

Yellow was laid to rest on an operating table in the Medbay, under a white sheet. Afterwards, the group went back to Security. The main console was covered in blood and axe blows. The other computers and monitors bore the marks of the fire axe as well. Only one screen was still pristine and Red kneeled down underneath it, checking up the console linked to it. Opening the panel revealed that a considerable amount of wirings had been irrevocably damaged. Yellow might have had the expertise to fix most if not all of the damaged systems, but Red felt lost while looking at the broken electronics.

Green joined him, kneeling in front of the console and looking at the mess of wires. “I think this one is ruined.”

Red looked at her, his suspicion of her clearly visible on his face. “Yeah, looks like it. But of course, you’d know that, wouldn’t you?”

“No! We voted, I’m not the killer!”

“Whatever. I can’t repair this shit. What I can do, however, is reconnect the monitor to another terminal that hasn’t taken too much damage. If any of you spots one tell me.”

“This drive hasn’t been hit.” Blue observed. “It seems to be linked to the camera systems.”

“Perfect, let’s try it on.”

They reconnected the one working monitor to the intact drive. White sat down in front of the connected drive, turning his head back towards the monitor while typing. “It appears we’ve lost connection to most cameras, except these four.”

The remaining four cameras were apparently all hallway cameras. Red tried to recall where in the ship were located each hallway shown on the monitors. “Looks like we got the cameras in front of the Navigation Deck, in front of the Security Room, in front of the Medbay and, hum... in front of Administration. The admin camera covers the hallway going from the Cafeteria to the Storage Room. Do we have the past recording of these cameras?”

White looked through the console. “Let me see… Fuck. There’s an error message, I’m gonna assume the recordings are in one of the damaged drives. For now we only have the ongoing feed, the security console isn’t saving the recording anywhere.”

Blue and Green opened panels and inspected more broken terminals. “This one’s fucking busted, can’t do nothing with that,” pointed out Blue. “This one though, the console could still be working but we need to reconnect the wires. We’ll need a bunch of tools. Solder iron, some stripper pliers, additional wire, some flashlights would be nice, maybe even a floodlight.”

“Can we find all that in Yellow’s toolbox?”

“We’re not gonna find a freaking floodlight in this box, that’s for sure. I doubt he brought a solder iron around with him, but I could be wrong. He did talk about wirings a lot so it’s possible he has most of the stuff in there. We should do an inventory of what we need and then pass by storage, minimize our trips.”

* * *

“There is an incoming transmission.”

“Really, but you haven’t even sent any message yet.”

“It’s a response to White’s request from this morning.”

“What does it say?”

“I don’t know, it’s encrypted, only the captain can access the encoded message. I’ll let him know.” Purple turned on her headset. “White, we just picked up a message for you from H.Q., it should be accessible on your personal device.” She moved her focus back to the main console.

“Do you think you’re any closer to finding out how they cut all communications?”

“There’s definitely no traces of a remote access. Whoever messed up the system did it right here.”

“How did you fix it last time?”

“I tried a bunch of stuff but in the end I realized the fastest solution would be to reboot the whole system.”

“Why, what was the issue?”

“The intraship cellular network was overtaken by a bunch of looped calls. Technically, all other networks were on, we could have easily sent or received messages between here and other ships or radio stations on nearby planets, but the network on which our headsets are linked was completely down.

“What do you mean, looped calls?”

“Connexion between phantom devices within the system, taking up the whole network as the computer here sent data all around the ship trying to connect headsets and phones that didn’t even exist. It’s kind of an easy script to write for the machine, but it still necessitates a modicum of programming knowledge.”

“We might know which machine on the ship was used to write it if we find the sabotage script.”

“I know, that’s why I was looking for it.”

“ ‘Was’?”

“It’s not on the console anywhere. I’ll have to assume that they had a flash drive with the script on it.”

“Great.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t find traces of the script though, there might be some bread crumbs left in the system. I mean, in theory.”

“We could send the message first, informing A.U.S. H.Q. of the death of Yellow, then get back to the troubleshooting.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” Purple went to a transcript screen to prepare a message. Before composing a message, she spoke in her headset: “Captain? What’s the response from H.Q.?”

“Fucking bullshit. They’re denying the request for further information on the foreign object. By the way, we are currently in the Storage Room, we’re picking up some tools and materials for the repairs in Security.”

“We, as in all four of you?”

“Yes, of course, we haven’t split the team. Tell me, would you happen to know where the floodlights are?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll ask. Pink, Orange, do you know where in Storage they could find a floodlight?”

“I had one set aside,” answered Pink, “in case we needed it on the Planet. The surface was much brighter than we anticipated so I left it up on the ship. It should be in a tall blue case next to the airlock.”

“Captain, look for a tall blue case next to the airlock.”

“Oh, yeah I see it. Red! Go pick up that case over there. Purple, is there a battery pack in the case?”

Purple turned to Pink. “Battery pack in the case?”

Pink nodded.

“Pink says yes.”

“Alright, Purple, I’ll let you to your tasks. White, Out.”

The Communication Officer went back to the monitor, pondering on how to write the request message. “Message to A.U.S. H.Q.. We have suffered the loss of one of our crewmates, Engineer T. Yellow. He was murdered by someone on the ship but so far we have been unable to identify the culprit. The ship has also been sabotaged at various times, presumably by the same person who murdered Yellow. Our Security Room has been thoroughly massacred, the saboteur has also temporarily crippled our communications and appears to be able to remotely lock doors. These events follow the theft of an artefact recovered planetside. The artefact, Foreign Object Theta-14, was recovered yesterday on Planet Theta-3 by our Medical Officer and our Science Officer and was subsequently stolen during the night, at some time between one am and two am. Our captain has formally requested more information on the artefact, for we have come to believe that the murder might be linked to it, but we have received a negative response. We are once again asking for information on the artefact, in hopes that the information could help us locate the murderer or understand their motives.” She paused, watching the text on screen.

The computer was finishing up the text-to-speech and correcting everything. Purple, with the advices of Pink and Orange, touched up the message before sending it towards Terra. The high-powered dish connected with the programmed navigation path, focusing on CSC7. The message would be sent towards the asteroid, which would then expedite the signal back to the home planet of the A.U.S.

“How long will it take you think?”

“CSC7 has a really exceptional relay so our signal should reach the Solar System within two to three hours. We should get a response around eleven pm. Hopefully they don’t snub us again.”

* * *

They had worked for a few hours on the terminals of the Security Room, when White, failing to reboot a terminal, checked his watch. “It’s almost ten. I propose we put the repairs here on hold and get to our private quarters. I will contact the POP team.”

White went out the door and called Purple, while keeping an eye on the rest of his team as they finished up their stuff. Blue put her soldering gear neatly in a corner and closed the panel of the terminal she was repairing, Green finished troubleshooting the cafeteria door system and Red grabbed the plastic bag filled with busted up drives and joined White. The bag of electronics was packaged for the recycling bin which would be dropped off once the ship reached the asteroid CSC7. 

“... yes, at the private quarters by ten pm. I mean, I would prefer if we set a precedent of being on time, but I can leave you a bit of leeway. Ten fifteen at most.”

Red whispered: “Everything alright on their end?”

“Yeah, they just have to finish a few tasks in the Shield Room before going to bed.”

The piloting team closed the door behind them. While repairing security systems, they had managed to find and fix the controls to the door of this room. White entered a code and put a soft lock on the door for the next ten hours. The door was barred shut, but if it opened at any time during the night it would alert the ship and wake up the members of the crew.

They went by Storage so that Red could drop off his bag, then went up and took the stairway in the cafeteria leading up to the smaller second floor of the ship. The second floor consisted of a hallway with a dozen or so tight private rooms, each with their own closet-sized bathroom. “We should wait here for the other three,” suggested White, which the others agreed to.

Red, Green and Blue sat down against a wall while White walked back and forth, waiting for the shield tasks to be done. Eventually, they heard footsteps coming up the stairs and all three members of the POP teams were accounted for. Each crewmate then stood in front of their room’s door and simultaneously opened their door, entered, closed the door and locked it behind them. 

Red went to the small lavatory and brushed his teeth, nervously looking back towards the door. When he was done, he picked up his headset and made a private call.

“Red?”

“Hey, Pink. How are you holding up?”

“I’m scared.”

“Yeah, me too. It’s going to be alright. We’ll keep an eye on each other, the crew will prevail.”

“Are you going to bed right now?”

“I think it would be best, I don’t want to feel sluggish and tired tomorrow, with what’s happening on the ship. You?”

“I’m going to take a quick shower first, then sleepy time.”

“I bet you’re wishing you could have a bath right now!”

“Oh my god, you have no idea! I think it’s the first thing I’m doing once we’re back on Terra where we got real full bathroom. Hmm, I think I’ll make it a bubble bath.”

Red smiled. “Alright, take care of yourself Pink. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

* * *

White walked in circles in his room. As the captain, his quarters were slightly bigger than the other rooms, just enough to allow him space to pace. He was nervously waiting for the H.Q. response, wondering whether they would give the information. With a mysterious murderer on board, they might be swayed to give them more info and maybe they might even send an unencrypted message accessible to every member of the crew. To them, White might be as suspicious as the rest. He waited for half an hour, eventually laying down and waiting in bed. He fell asleep before the message could reach the ship.

* * *

Purple, tossing and turning, stayed awake for a long time. She kept her communicator close by, in case a message came in during the night. She was about to fall asleep when a *beep* made her eyes open wide. “I’m awake! I’m awake!”

She grabbed the communicator and… it was a tourism advertisement for the Pi system. “Fucking garbage.” She threw the communicator away. She assumed a bot had infiltrated the comms system on the asteroid’s relay and was sending adverts to any ships sending or receiving messages from the relay. She thought about sending a message to the Communication Officer of the asteroid, but the bot might intercept it. She’d have a talk with them in person then, once the ship would leave the Theta system and reach CSC7.

* * *

Orange laid down, looking up at the ceiling. She fell asleep crying while musing about the events that had happened during the day.

* * *

Pink got out of the shower and sat on the bed. As she brushed her hair, her thought wandered towards Red, then to the message they had sent to Terra earlier in the day. She wondered what H.Q. knew about the artefact and was eager to be back on the home planet.

* * *

Blue had her communicator on. She scrolled through the group chat and giggled at the last posted picture. It was the funny-looking rock that the robotic probe had passed by this morning. The picture was bittersweet, considering it had been posted by Yellow.

* * *

Green had a hard time falling asleep. Three different people suspected her of having commited the gruesome murder, which was a horrible situation for her.

* * *

At some point in the middle of the night, Purple tossed and turned, eventually waking up. She was used to missing sleep and quickly went to the small washroom, opened the cabinet above the sink and picked up some sleeping pills. Before she got time to swallow them, she heard a faint sound. She stopped moving and listened for a minute, waiting for the sound. Exiting the bathroom, Purple tried to walk silently.

The sound came back. She turned her head, ears focused, trying to find the source. She wondered if the sounds were coming from the hallway outside his door, or if it was coming from below. The sound grew louder, resembling some kind of… dragging … mixed with metallic knocks. She opened the room’s light and kept wandering around, trying to find the source. The sound grew louder, seemingly coming from the back wall. Purple stood against the secure door, nervously watching around.

She tried reaching for her communicator, but then remembered she had thrown it earlier. The sound grew louder as she fumbled around the room, panicking and swearing under her breath. “Fucking advertisement piece of shit, if I make it out of here alive I’m gonna make it my life’s mission to find the dipshit who sent that fucking ad and pull his guts out through his asshole!”

When she did find her personal communicator, her heart sank. It had been cracked when she threw it and was now inoperative. The noises in the wall grew louder.

  
  


* * *


	5. Rough Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is the morning after the murder. The crew is anxious to find the murderer (or murderers) before they strike again.

**V**

The communicator’s buzzer went off at six o’clock. Red woke up, feeling somewhat rested. He had never been known for a healthy sleep schedule, yet this night with the constraint on the ship and the anxiety being too intense for him to fiddle on his screen for hours before sleep, he had managed to get a reasonable night of sleep.

He initiated a call towards the other crewmates: “Good morning gang. Should we all get out at the same time?”

Five voices eventually answered his, with a consensus being to give everyone five minutes to get dressed and get ready to come out. Those with a habit of getting up early had already taken their morning shower and were ready to move to the cafeteria to eat. In the cacophony of voices it took a good thirty seconds for someone to eventually say: “I’m not hearing anything from Purple. Purple? Are you there?”

The rest of the crew fell silent. Everyone waited for an answer that never came, until the captain told the crew to stick to the five minutes plan and they would all go investigate her room together.

Six doors opened almost at the same moment and a bunch of heads peaked out. The six crewmates met in front of Purple’s room, and then White knocked loudly. “Purple?”

“Who is it?” yelled a muffled voice on the other side.

A sigh of relief came from the crew, as White responded: “It’s Captain White here with everybody.”

“Red here.”

“Pink.”

“Orange.”

“Green and Blue in the house!”

“You only need to say your own name! Blue here by the way.”

The door opened, revealing a haggard Purple with crazy eyes and disheveled hair. She almost jumped out of the room, grabbing the captain with a hug and whispering: “Thank goodness, I was so scared!”

White, bewildered, looked over her shoulder to see a room in complete disarray with furnitures moved around. “What… happened here.”

“We need to talk.” She looked suspiciously around the room at the other crewmates. “You, Red and me.”

“Those aren’t the teams…”

“Just, please, we’ll chat in the Cafeteria while the rest watch us from a distance. I just need a quick word in private with you and Red.”

The captain glanced at the rest of the crew, then instructed them to walk down to the Cafeteria. Blue, Green, Orange and Pink sat on one end of the room, eating breakfast while looking toward the other three crewmates.

Purple, Red and White sat at the other end of the room. Purple’s wide eyes glanced nervously from one person to another and her hands trembled on the table.

“Did you get any sleep?”

“Only a few hours. Something passed by my room and woke me up.”

“By your room? Like in the hallway?”

“No, on the other side. I heard sounds coming from behind the wall.” She paused, looking for words. “I… I’m pretty sure something was moving through the vents.”

“Is that why you move your furnitures? You tried to block the vent?”

“Yeah. I also tried finding a weapon, but there was nothing useful in my room.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” pondered Red. “Have you seen inside the vent? A human adult couldn’t fit their shoulders in those tight ducts.”

“Even someone with narrow shoulders?” inquired Purple.

“I doubt it. I mean, we specifically have a pair of tiny robots whose job is to crawl into the ventilation system for maintenance, because a person can’t fit inside”

“Okay, but there was definitely something moving in the vents, if not someone.”

“Maybe Yellow sent a robot to do repairs and he never got a chance to inform us of that fact.”

“Red, trust me it wasn’t a fucking robot. It was something big, like human-sized, crawling, bumping into the metal walls, it was terrifying. I don’t know exactly what it was, but I can assure you I didn’t hear some cute little wheels rolling around.”

“Maybe the killer isn’t human. It could be some kind of alien that hitched a ride on the ship and is hiding in the vents.”

“Your alien would need to be smart enough and familiar with human technology enough to write the script that crippled our communication.”

“A crewmate working with an alien then?”

Purple looked at the other four crewmates. “Look, I just know that something moved into the vent. It seemed like there was something being dragged.”

“By the way, Purple, how come you haven’t answered Red’s call this morning?”

“I broke my communicator… Accidentally, though. I did throw it, but because I was pissed and not because I wanted to break it. I didn’t want to walk out of the room and get offed in the middle of the night, so I blocked the vent and hid in my room until morning…”

“Breaking your communicator like that was kinda dumb though.”

“Red, in case you haven’t noticed, there is a fucking murderer on the ship and we already lost a good friend. My actions were not guided by rationality, because I was, like most people on this ship, fucking apprehensive and on edge. So when I got a garbage ad instead of a message with useful information, I was rightfully pissed. White, did you get the response from H.Q.?”

“I did and again we got a bullshit negative response. They offer condolences for the death of our crewmate but apparently the status of the foreign object is still too confidential.”

“I’m gonna fucking strangle those corporate dimwits.”

“Not if I get to them first.”

“Awww.” Purple and White glanced at each other, enjoying each other’s common anger towards HeadQuarters.

“Okay, but why are you telling us that? Why White and me?”

“Because I was with you when Yellow’s death occured. You two are the only people on this ship that I can trust.”

“That’s fair.”

“I already suspected this was the reason why,” White clarified. “Anyway, if you did hear something going through the vents, how come no one’s been assassinated?”

Purple looked back at the four other crewmates, then at Red and White. “Wh- What if someone has been assassinated?”

White looked astonished, glaring at Purple, before looking towards the other crewmates. “Care to explain?”

“I had a lot of time to think, while I was waiting for someone to burst out of the vent and maybe kill me. Think about everything that has happened. Who, in our group, would murder Yellow? Really, think hard about it.”

White kept silent for a while, seemingly pondering. Eventually, he groaned a quiet “Nobody.” Purple nodded and looked at Red, as if she was waiting for him to concur.

“You’re right. I couldn’t imagine a single person in this room would have murdered Yellow. They were all close to him and I would never picture any of these four as a murderer.”

“Exactly!” proclaimed Purple. “It’s completely and absurdly out of character to think any of these four could have chopped Yellow with an axe. I believe that someone in the ship has been…” She paused, glaring at the four other crewmates.

“... has been what?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe they have been mind-controlled, or their body was taken over by an alien parasite.”

“Like in the Invasion of the Body Snatcher?” asked Red. “Or like the Thing?” White turned to him with a dumbfounded expression. “Twentieth century sci-fi movies, I know you don’t watch those. But they did remake the Thing in 2122, you might have seen it. The full title was The Thing from Another World.”

White shaked his head. Red turned his head to Purple, who seemed to have a tinge of remembrance.

“Never mind.”

“So, that means there is a literal imposteur in the crew.”

“That’s a theory I came up with during the night.”

“And in your theory, would this imposteur be linked to the foreign object?”

“The murder and sabotage only started after we picked it up.”

“Red, what can you tell us about the object?”

“What? Why me? I don’t know shit about it, just like any of you.”

“Well, we don’t know what it does, but you did see it, right? Most of the crew only saw the case you brought it in. You and Pink were planetside and saw the object itself.”

“Well, that’s true.”

“What does it look like? What did the surrounding look like?”

“How did you even find it?” added Purple.

“Well, first to answer Purple, the mission statement was to search for an object with a distinct radioactive signature. Most of the planet has a light radioactivity, about 225% of Terra’s base radioactive signature. Not outrageously dangerous to human survival, especially for a short trip in full suit, but it does give a bothersome background noise.

“We found the artefact in the middle of what seems to be a strange rock formation. I have taken a few pictures around and I have pondered about it for a while, thinking that they might have been the remnants of a construction. This would fit with the hypothesis that I had about the planet being terraformed. You see, a few details about the landscape were off. When searching for the object, we flew over a canyon, but I remember spotting a ledge on the side that seemed awfully convenient, as if it had been carved by people wanting to pass through the canyon.”

“If they were able to carve through rock, they must have been pretty advanced. How come you haven’t spotted any signs of civilization?”

“Well, I mean they didn’t need to be that advanced, the canyon was relatively small and the path could have been made with rudimentary pickaxes. If it was indeed carved by something, it could have been made by creatures that could simply comprehend and use basic tools, no need to have automated laser cutters to carve through stone. Back on Terra, people have been carving stones for thousands of years. All I’m saying is that I bet our probe will end up finding traces of life on that planet.”

“More importantly, if there used to be life on the planet, where has it all gone?”

Red looked back at White, then at Purple. No one wanted to speak first and propose the idea that the artefact might have been linked to the disappearance of life on the planet.

“So, Red, care to describe what the object looked like?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. It looked like some kind of large black metallic losange. It was textured…” Red thought for a second about the best way to describe it. “It kinda reminded me of the scales of a pangolin.”

“A what?”

“Pangolin, it’s an extinct order of mammals, here let me show you.” He pulled up an image on his communicator and showed it to his colleagues. “See the scales? The texture on the foreign object reminded me of this a little.”

“So, do you think it was part of a living specimen?”

“Unlikely, Pink concluded that it was mostly made of metal, due to the weight and color. I would have loved to run some tests on the spectrometer to know the actual isotopic composition, but we had strict orders to stick it in a case and lock it up, and now with it missing it’s pretty much kaput.”

“You mentioned a radioactive signature. Haven’t you considered it could be possible to track it within the ship with this knowledge?”

“I have, however there is one slight problem.” Red paused for emphasis. “The reactor. It has a remarkably similar signature to the object. At first, I believed our mission to retrieve it was linked to some new fuel or engineering research project.”

“Would it still be technically possible to find the object within the ship, despite the background noise of the reactor?”

“Maybe. If it is hidden near the back of the ship, close to the reactor, then probably not. Otherwise, we could check to be sure.”

“How far into the ship would the reactor’s signature affect our sensors?”

“Honestly, I have no idea.”

“Alright, well we can add Geiger counter expedition to our list of daily tasks.” White opened the digital notebook of his communicator. “We should also get you a new communicator, Purple.”

“What about the robots,” she said, as if she hadn’t even heard White’s last sentence. “Red, do you know if they have cameras?”

Red looked towards her, then after a few seconds of thoughts. “I don’t know, but I would assume so. We have to be able to control them inside the vents, so logically they have front-facing cameras. However, I don’t know what kind of camera. They could either be high-resolution cameras that gives us a live feed of high quality videos, or low-resolution cameras that trade quality for records, keeping constant saved copies of what they see.”

“Even with the high-end cameras, I’m sure we could link them to a terminal somewhere with enough space to record everything they see, at least for a few days.”

“For three live-feed of high-definition videos, you’d need a beefy drive, Security had some but they’re unusable now.”

“Communication has reasonably large drives, we can use those to save our robots’ video feed. And then we could send them in the vents to investigate.”

“Investigate what?”

“I don’t know, anything suspicious. Blood, little bits of clothes teared on corners, bumps in the walls.”

“Some vents can be locked from outside,” added Red. “Like those in the private quarters, I’m pretty sure no one could open them from the ventilation shaft.”

“Then we tell the robot to check for vents that were forced open. Or check the vent doors for digital prints.”

“It’s a maintenance robot, Purple. It can fix wirings and clog holes, but it’s not equipped with a miniaturized forensics lab.”

“Clog holes?” asked White, incredulous. “Shouldn’t it unclog holes?”

“Well, I guess yeah, if a vent is blocked by some leaves or whatever, but I was referring to the fast acting plastic glue gun it has. If a shaft gets damaged, let’s say by a tiny asteroid piercing the wall of the ship, then the robot can be dispatched to the damaged portion and shoot plastic glue that solidifies instantly within the hole. Usually in the ship, we’d do it, but in the vents, as I said, a human being can’t fit.”

“Whatever, Red,” Purple continued, “we can check the exterior of the vents for fingerprints then, while the robots patrol the shafts.”

“Those robots would certainly offer some much needed help. Red, do you know where they are and how to run them?”

“If I remember correctly, there are three of them, each stashed at a different part of the ship so they can quickly cover the vent network in case of an emergency. One close to each engine room and one close to, probably Navigation. I think Security would give us control over them, but we’re far from over repairing that room so I’d say Administration might give us access to their controls. Or maybe the Engine Rooms. Or maybe we gotta access each robot directly.”

“I am currently rethinking the two teams' plans. Maybe we would be safer if everyone stays in one group for the moment.”

Red nodded. “Obviously, if we assume there are more than one killers, a three-persons team becomes a potential death trap.”

“Finding the object is our number one priority today. We will activate the robots, get the Geiger counters and check the vents for prints.”

“Wait! What if they used the vent to get to Yellow?”

Red and White watched Purple in silence, then stared at each other.

“Brain,” asked Red, “bring a projector above the table.” As one of the Cafeteria’s projector reached above their table, Red requested a blueprint of the ship.

“Request denied. Blueprints require the Captain’s access code.”

“What! Why? Yesterday you pulled the map up, why isn’t it allowing you today?”

“Yesterday, Red pulled up the map of the ship, which doesn’t show the sublevels of the map such as the ventilation shafts. Now, he requested the blueprints, which show everything and apparently in this ship the blueprints are restricted behind my access code. Captain White requesting permission.” As the Brain recognized White’s voice and projected the blueprints, he added: “Don’t worry, I also think it’s kinda dumb that you can’t access the blueprints without me. Brain, from now on, give special authorisations to Red and Purple to access the ship’s blueprints. Captain White requesting permission.”

Red and Purple watched the projected model with respectively awe and horror.

“Damn, there is a lot of hidden stuff in this ship,” remarked Red.

“They go fucking everywhere,” Purple noted while looking at the vents system. “If something can crawl in these, it could move around the ship without being seen by anyone and quickly get from one end to the other. What a fucking nightmare.”

* * *

Orange watched Red, White and Purple with distaste. “Is it just me, or does it seem like those three think they’re better than us.”

“I wouldn’t say they are the most humble members of the crew,” responded Blue, “but I’m pretty sure they stick together because they were together at the time of Yellow’s death. The same reason why you are the only person I trust right now.”

At least one person trusted her, that was good. She looked at Pink and Green and wondered what they thought of the situation. 

“Green, you wanna watch ‘Suikyū!!’?”

“Oh, I’d love that!”

Blue called in a projector next to their table, pulled a wire from it and connected it to her communicator, loading the latest episode into the projector and putting the anime on one of the cafeteria walls. Green, Blue and Orange pulled out their headset and connected it wirelessly to the projector to get the show’s sound. Pink followed not long after. She wasn’t as much a fan of the show, but she had watched a few episodes and had enjoyed them so far.

They were halfway into the episode when Red, Purple and White approached their table. White made a sign to lower their headset and Orange begrudgingly did so. “We already watched this one, but Green hasn’t. Is it okay if we stay here just a little longer before going out to do whatever it is you’re about to order us to do?”

White glanced at Green, then looked at Orange, but ultimately he conceded and sat on a nearby table. Red and Purple sat down next to him, Purple pulled up her headset while Red and White looked down at their communicators.

As the credits rolled, the group anxiously got up, with Green, Blue, Orange and Pink grabbing their empty meal trays to bring them back to the food printing station.

The seven crewmates went through the Storage Room, then into Communication, where Purple grabbed a new communicator, as well as a secure case to put around it. The group walked back to the Storage, where Red picked up a box containing three Geiger counters. There was an empty slot in the black foam, where a fourth counter would fit.

“Pink, do you remember where we put the Geiger counter when coming back from planetside?”

“You’re the Science Officer, you had it last.”

“I don’t remember where I put it.”

Orange rolled her eyes. “Shit, Red, you always do that. It’s gonna be on the most obvious table in like Medbay or wherever.”

“I’m sorry… But for now we got these three.”

“What’s the first part of the plan?”

“Well first we need to calibrate them to the ship’s background noise, then we can delimitate the search patterns for the signature of the object.”

Orange let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re still looking for that fucking piece of shit? How about we find the killer instead?” She walked away from the box of Geiger, joining Blue and Green at the opposing corner of the room.

“They’re looking for the object, apparently they’re gonna find it with a radioactive signature or whatever.”

“But,” muttered Green, “how’s that gonna help us find the murderer?”

“I don’t know. Maybe White got a message from corporate saying the object was a priority over avenging our crewmate. Spineless twat.”

“Woah, Orange, don’t say that.” Blue gently posed a hand on her wrist. “I’m sure White is just as pissed as us about Yellow’s death. He would never prioritize some random artefact over a member of the crew. You know that, right?”

“Considering someone on this ship has murderer Yellow, no, I don’t fucking know anything apparently. I’m just a dumb bitch who put my trust in liars and murderers.”

“Hey! I already said many times, I didn’t kill anyone!” Green’s yell caught the attention of the rest of the room and she slinked back in the corner like a shadow when she felt a bunch of eyes looking in her direction. She then muttered: “Also you’re not a dumb bitch, we love you.”

“I appreciate it, thank you Green.”

Red, Pink and White approached them with the three working counters. “We’re trying to track a radioactive signature, keep these open and report to us if it starts clicking. Although, it will start clicking if you approach the reactor. In fact, we’re trying to know at what distance the counters start detecting the reactor’s signature.” Red kept one of the devices on himself, Pink kept the second and Purple got hold of the third. “When we’ll get the fourth counter, who would like to have it?”

“You can give it to me,” offered Orange, “if you find it.”

The seven crewmates then moved towards the back of the ship. All three Geiger meters acted up as soon as they entered the room of the Lower Engine.

“Is, is that safe?” asked Green with a shaky voice.

“Yes. Wait, is what safe?”

“The reactor.”

“Oh. In theory, yes. We tweaked the sensitivity to focus heavily on alpha radiation, which is really not the most dangerous radioactivity to human beings. If the reactor was sending off bunches of gamma rays through the ship, then we’d have problems.”

"That's not true," chimed in Pink. "Alpha radiation is much more dangerous to humans."

"Really? I thought... Well, I mean, radiology is your field of expertise so I'll trust you on that.

Green glared anxiously at the clicking meter in Red’s hand. “I really don’t like knowing that our reactor leaks so much radiation in the ship.”

“The quantity of radiation is still not that high. If it makes you feel any better, standing right next to the reactor would give you about 150% of the amount of radiation you’d get from travelling in an unprotected airplane back on Terra. At worst, you’ll get skin cancer in twenty or so years.”

“I don’t want skin cancer!”

“Yeah well we might not need to worry about that if we all get murdered.”

Red opened a little hatch close to the engine, revealing an inert machine. As he took it out, Orange realized that it was a small robot with wheels. The group watched intently as Red started up the robot. Purple kneeled next to it and linked her communicator to the back of the machine, then gently patted the robot on the head. 

It slowly whirred up and a bunch of LEDs came up on its front. Red walked up to the vent and pulled it open, then the gang watched as the tiny machine rolled into the ventilation shaft. Red and Purple both had their communicators in hand and seemed to be sending work orders to the little robot.

They repeated the ordeal in the Upper Engine Room and then in the Navigation Room, all the while noting that the Geiger meters stopped detecting anything as they moved away from the back end of the ship.

“Why are we sending little robots in the vents?” asked Orange while watching Red and Purple in the process of activating the third one.

“We’re investigating possible clues,” stated Red.

“Clues about what? What the fuck are we looking for.”

“I heard something crawling through the vents last night.”

“Oh, okay. Then why aren’t we crawling in there and looking for clues?” Orange kept an innocuous tone as she interrogated them.

“A human being can’t fit in those vents, that’s why we’re sending the little robots.”

“Oh, okay. So Purple says she heard something crawling through the vent, but you’re here saying that no one could fit in there. It feels like there is a fallacious logical leap in there that I, unlike you, am unable to make.”

“Hey. I know what I heard last night. There was definitely someone or something in the vents.” Purple stood up right in front of Orange and the two officers glared at each other.

“So you say.” While maintaining eye contact, she addressed the rest of the crew: “Who else can say they heard noises from the vents? I’m a pretty light sleeper and I heard jack fucking shit.”

“I didn’t hear anything, but I trust Purple,” said Red.

“Same here,” White added, standing behind Purple and looking distrustfully at Orange.

“I was asleep by eleven, didn’t hear anything until I woke up.” Blue moved behind Orange as she talked.

“I’m pretty sure I’m the smallest in the room and even I wouldn’t fit in there,” stated Green. She moved close to Blue, watching Purple and White apprehensively. “I didn’t hear anything all night.”

“So, since I also didn’t hear anything, that means Purple is the only one claiming to have heard noises in the vent,” observed Pink.

“You know what I’m thinking?” Orange’s question was rhetorical. “I’m thinking she’s trying to distract us by doing menial tasks. The possibility of someone crawling in the vents is ridiculous, yet we’re all here wasting our precious time on this shitty project.”

“What the fuck are you proposing we do then? Just sit in a corner and patiently wait for death?”

“Honestly, I’d rather have you anywhere other than in my fucking face right now. If you want to go jerk off in a corner I don’t give a shit.”

“You better be careful Orange. You’re still part of the four crewmates who could have killed Yellow.”

Orange’s eyes widened and she let out a chuckle. “Really? You’re gonna play that fucking card right now? Because with the way you, captain frisk and doctor emotional robot have been acting since yesterday, I’m really starting to suspect the three of you to be in on this whole shit.”

Purple hummed. “Tell me, dear, how did it feel when you planted that axe in our friend’s back?” 

Orange’s face distorted with anger. “I didn’t fucking kill him!” she screamed, clutching Purple’s shirt collar.

The rest of the crew jumped in to separate the two, yells and cries intermingling as Orange and Purple berated each other, trying to hit one another. Red and White tried to contain Purple while the other three held Orange back as best as they could.

“I didn’t fucking kill him!” screamed Orange over and over.

“That’s exactly what the murderer would say!” Purple yelled back, flailing her arm and hitting Red in the face while trying to punch the Humanities Officer.

“That’s what ANYBODY would say you dumb bitch!”

“Fucking let go of my arms I need to teach this moron a lesson.”

“Stop fighting!” Pleaded Green, panicking.

Orange, eyes red with rage, spat at Purple. Purple then gasped, eyes wide and mouth open. “Oh, you did not just do that. I’m going to kill you. I don’t give a fuck, I will break your neck.”

“Well, you sure sound like you’d have the moral capacity to murder. I assume then that Red and White kept watch while you were the one who murdered Yellow, isn't that right you cold-blooded bitch?” 

With renewed vigor fueled by ire, Purple broke free of Red and White’s grasp, jumping at her target. Orange shifted back and used Blue as a shield, who was then thrown aside by Purple.

In the ensuing melee, crewmates were punched and kicked, insults were thrown out and feelings were hurt.. Focused on trying to strangle Purple, Orange didn’t see who it was that turned off the room’s light.

* * *


	6. Medical Emergency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone caused a blackout in the Navigation Room. Things got out of hands fast.

**VI**

Green ran as fast as she could. The sound of her footsteps echoed around her as she rushed through the metallic hallways. She ended up in the Upper Engine Room, where she turned left and kept running. She arrived at a four-ways intersection, on her right the Reactor Room, on her left Security and straight ahead the Lower Engine Room. She jumped into the Security Room and sat down on a rolling chair, huffing and puffing from her sprint. She barely had a few seconds to breathe when she saw Blue standing in the doorway. She screamed and jumped behind the floodlight, turning it towards the intruder.

“Ah! What the fuck! Stop blinding me!”

“WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME?

“Hey! I wasn’t following you! I panicked when the lights went out and I ran away. You think you’re the only one who wanted to hide here?”

“And why do you specifically want to hide in this room?”

“Because we can control the doors from here and have access to at least some of the cameras. Why do YOU want to hide here?”

Green didn’t have an answer ready, so she opened her mouth and stood there in silence for a second, before pointing forward and yelling: “Red!”

Blue turned briskly and let out a gasp as she saw Red standing right behind her. She quickly moved next to Green. “Fuck! Look he’s covered in blood!”

“He IS! RED DID YOU KILL SOMEONE IN THE DARK!?”

“Wait! I didn’t kill anyone!” He wiped the blood on his face. “It’s my blood, I got elbowed during the face!”

Looking more closely, the two crewmates realized that it did indeed look like the result of a nosebleed. Red didn’t look too good, his face now featuring a broken nose and a black eye.

Green held the floodlight up like a quarterstaff, while keeping the light pointed forward towards Red.

“Well, I guess the nosebleed explains the blood on your shirt,” conceded Green. She turned her head to Blue, who was slowly backing away from her and getting closer to Red.

“... and how do you explain the blood on YOUR shirt?” Blue’s tone was a mix of inquiring and fearful.

Green looked down at her shirt, which did have blood splatters on it, then looked back up at Blue, which was now standing next to Red, holding one hand up to block the blinding light. “I don’t know how that got there.”

Red moved away from Blue, into the room. All three crewmates watched each other, but both Green and Blue looked towards Red as he stood in front of the vent. As he put his hand on the ventilation grate, Green gasped. He pulled on it, until it eventually snapped and he held the grate in his hand.

Green recoiled, watching Red intently. “What are you doing?” 

“I don’t trust either of you, so I’m gonna use this grate as a shield.”

“Doesn’t look like a great weapon,” noted Blue.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like there’s much choice in the room right now. Green, why do you have blood on your shirt?”

“I… I don’t know, it must have splashed on me during the blackout. Maybe it’s your nose blood?”

“That’s a bit too much splatter to be from my nose, though.”

“Do you think someone has been hurt during the blackout?” Blue looked at Red with pleading eyes. They both looked at Green and the blood on her shirt. 

Red carefully moved toward a corner of the room, keeping his vent-grate-shield up and looking back and forth between the two other crewmates.

Blue, keeping her fists up, walked up to one of the terminals in the room. It was the one they had repaired the day before. She kept on hand ready to strike in case anyone tried to charge at her and with the other she booted up the computer.

Red, his makeshift weapon still up, glanced at the screen as it powered up. It split into four smaller screens, showing the four working cameras. The camera focused on the hallway in front of Navigation showed a gruesome trail of blood coming out of the room and moving up towards Weapons.

“What the fuck, Red?”

“Oh, that’s not me. Most of the blood I lost is still on my shirt.”

Blue looked back at Green. “Who did you kill?”

“I didn’t kill anyone! Maybe you killed someone!”

“You realize I’m the only person in the room who’s not covered in blood, right?”

Red chimed in: “Exactly. That makes you the most suspicious.”

Blue, stunned, looked back at Red. “Care to explain how not being covered in blood makes me suspicious?”

“I killed no one and I have blood on me. Hence, blood makes people innocent.”

“... Are you for real?”

Red looked at Blue for a second, processing the information. “Hey, I got hit in the head and I lost a lot of blood, my thought process is not at its maximum right now.”

“Well, then I guess we should get you to the-”

“Medbay!”

“Yes, Green, we need to bring him to the Medbay.”

“No! Medbay!” She pointed at the screen as she yelled. Blue and Red looked up and saw the rest of the crewmates in the camera in front of Medbay. They barely had times to see them entering the room, leaving only the blood trail in their wake.

“Wait, who’s bleeding? I didn’t have time to see.”

“They were carrying Pink, I think.”

Red’s eyes grew wide. Well, his undamaged eye grew wide. He ran out of the room, leaving Blue and Green face to face with only a floodlight between them. They watched each other in silence, Green seeing fear grow in Blue’s eyes as the two stood alone in a room.

“Hey.” Red yelled, his head poking into the door frame. “What the fuck are you two doing standing around. Come on.”

The two moved out of their stupor and ran out behind Red. They eventually reached the hallway in front of the Medbay, seeing the trail of blood coming from the Cafeteria. As they entered the room, Green saw Purple, Orange and White standing around an operating table, upon which was laid down a profusely bleeding Pink.

The two standing trios looked at each other for a second, until Red broke the silence by running up to the table and talking to the unconscious Pink. Green and Blue slowly approached, watching the scene.

“What happened?” sheepishly asked Green.

No one answered. Purple and Orange, with the help of Red, did their best to stabilize Pink and stop the bleeding. White approached the other two crewmates, focusing on Green’s shirt. He glanced at the other crewmates, then back at Green. “Whose blood is it on your shirt?”

“I have no idea. Now I’m thinking it might be Pink’s.”

“Huh-huh.” White’s tone was accusatory, despite not saying anything.

“I didn’t kill her!”

“Well, she’s still alive.”

“No, I mean, I didn’t hurt her either!”

“Figured you’d say that.”

Green gasped. “I don’t even know how she was injured!”

“Why did you say you thought it could be Pink then?”

“Because her and Red are the only ones who seem to have been bleeding and I got too much blood apparently for the amount of blood that came out of his nose!”

“So you really don’t know how she got hurt?”

“I don’t!”

Blue, nervously, asked, “Will she be okay? What happened to her?”

“Honestly, we don’t know for sure if she’ll make it. We’d ask the medical expert on board for her advice on the case, but she’s bleeding out.”

“I didn’t do it…” insisted Green, weakly.

“As for what happened to her, well, her head was bashed in by…” He held a hand up to point a mangled mess of blood-covered metal bits drooling on a nearby counter, “... the ventilation maintenance robot.”

“Why did you bring it here?”

“We’ll check it for prints.”

“Didn't half the crew touch it during setup?”

“I expect we’ll find Red’s, Purple’s and Yellow’s digits on it, but if we find anyone else’s, it could be a clue.”

Blue looked beyond White at the three crewmates tending to Pink and then walked past White to get to the operating table. Green attempted to join them, but White moved into her way, holding one hand up in front of him. Green glared at him and he shaked his head.

“I can help you, I can help her!”

“We already have four people on it, they’ll be alright.”

“You don’t seriously think I’m the one who did it, right?”

“A majority of us already suspect you of killing Yellow and now... Things aren’t exactly looking up for you.”

Green didn’t know what to say. White had voted for her yesterday after Yellow’s demise, So had Pink and Red. She looked at White, then at the bleeding victim further in the room. “Oh my god! Look!” she screamed, while pointing towards the group. When White anxiously looked back, she ran out of the room.

She heard White yell at her as she fled the Medbay. She was fully aware that the crew suspected her of hurting Pink and might quarantine her, or worse.

* * *

Blue, who had been assigned to hold a towel against the bleeding gash on the back of Pink’s head, heard Green scream “Oh my god, look!” She looked up and saw her point at them, then as soon as White turned his head towards them, she saw Green bolt out of the room, in the direction of the Cafeteria. White ran for a few paces, stopping in the doorway, looking right, then muttering “Damnit.” He looked back at the group and then forward and seemed to consider following after Green.

Orange and Blue looked up towards White, while Purple and Red kept focused on trying to stabilize Pink. Blue cautioned the captain, “Hey, don’t run after her. You don’t want to be alone with her.”

White looked back at the group, then back at the hallway, then walked back into the Medbay. “Let’s focus on Pink and then go after Green.”

“What if she starts sabotaging the ship while we’re all here?” warned Blue.

White started sweating. He looked at the group. Blue knew what he was thinking, or rather, she was pretty sure she knew. He was trying to think of how to divide the group. Blue looked at the five standing crewmates. Green was alone and running around the ship doing god knows why, Pink was bleeding out. A gang needed to stay in the Medbay and a gang needed to go retrieve Green.

“Two people stay here, three get Green?” proposed White.

“Red and Purple seem to be doing a good job keeping Pink alive,” added Blue. “The remaining of us could go arrest Green.”

White hesitated. “I don’t know if it’s the best team setup.”

“And I don’t think the smart thing to do would be to spend thirty minutes in here pondering on the best teams. Each wasted minute is time Green could spend fucking up the ship.”

White conceded. Orange agreed. Purple and Red watched them, bloody hands holding tools and soiled rags. Blue and Orange quickly washed their hands and rushed out with White, most of them still with blood on their sleeves from tending Pink’s wounds.

The hunting trio warily moves through the ship, searching for Green. Luckily for them, Green had stepped into Pink’s blood on her way through the Cafeteria, so they followed the trail of bloody footprints down in the hallway leading to the Storage Room, passing by Electrical, then into the Lower Engine. “Is she running in circles?” pondered Orange while seeing the faint red trail turning right in the Higher Engine Room.

Blue wondered if Green had run back to the Medbay. “Should we check the security cameras?” asked Blue. “We might see where she’s heading…”

White interjected, “no, if she has ran back to Medbay, she could be attacking Red and Purple right now.”

The trio kept going, until they reached the Medbay, where the bloody trail circled in on itself. 

“She ran by, going through the Cafeteria!” Purple gave them the indication, then went back to tending the wounded.

The hunting party reached the Cafeteria, where they saw a bloody pair of boots under one of the tables. Green had probably noticed the trail she was leaving by now and thus taken off her boots. The group looked around, trying to wage in which direction she was most likely to have ran away. 

“She could have gone to the Greenhouse to fuck up our oxygen supply,” suggested Blue.

“If she circled back by Electrical, she could cripple the whole ship’s lights system. We’ll be picked off one by one in the dark.” Orange’s voice was trembling as she considered the options.

“Navigation Room,” added White. “She knows the radar systems, she can mess up our travel route and keep us lost in this system.”

“I doubt it, there’s no major system break she can create in Navigation that I can’t fix in a reasonable timetable,” precised Blue. “We should all get some flashlights ready in case lights go out. I think Oxygen is the priority right now.”

The other two agreed and they made their way to the Greenhouse, which was empty. White picked up his headset and called Purple “Keep in constant contact, warn us if you see Green coming by the Medbay.”

The group went by Navigation, as it was close by. As the door opened, Blue looked into the darkness and asked, “lights are still out?”

“Our saboteur friend pulled down the light switch and then in the darkness opened the electrical panel and pulled on the wire.”

“The same kind of crude sabotage that occured in the Reactor Room.”

“We should have gotten flashlights. Only Purple has one on her at all times. Smart move.”

“We’re passing by Storage on our way to Electrical, we’ll pick up five flashlights once we’re there.” White turned around and walked away towards the new objective he had laid out.

“Five?” Orange asked as they walked.

“One for each of us, one for Red, and a real one for Purple. It’s smart of her to have a flashlight, but we got torches that are much more powerful than her tiny key ring light. Anyway, I don’t think she’ll argue against having more light on her.”

As they passed by Storage, they quickly picked up the tools. White grabbed the extra light for Purple and Blue grabbed the extra light for Red. They then went by Electrical, looked behind the tall electrical shelves and into the creepy hidden corners of the room. “I’m so happy you two are with me,” said Blue. “Coming here alone is a nightmare in normal times.”

Green was nowhere to be seen, the group then passed by the Lower Engine, then in front of Security. They decided to take a look in the room. The four active cameras showed empty hallways, now covered by trails of blood. “We could check the private quarters, proposed Orange.”

“I don’t think… I don’t think she’d be that stupid.” Blue wondered if Green had indeed gone to hide in her room. After all, her boots had been left in the Cafeteria, not too far from the stairs.

Orange led the way, followed closely by White. Blue recoiled from the screens and the grim scenes they showed. She ran after the other two and they passed again in front of Medbay. Blue glanced quickly and noticed that the two officers were still working hard but they looked less worried. From the way they seemed calmer, Blue felt like Pink might pull through.

They hastily climbed the stairs, entering the hallway of private quarters. The occupied rooms had been locked after the crew exited them in the morning. There were a number of unoccupied rooms, as well as Yellow’s room, which were currently unlocked. Orange and Blue stood in front of Green’s door, too anxious to do anything. Blue took out her communicator and tried to contact Green. “Hey. Do you hear me? We just want to talk.”

Orange knocked on the door. Despite the thick metal door, they could hear an audible gasp on the other side, which made them glare at each other with wide open eyes. Blue tilted her head backwards and glanced at White. She pointed at the door and silently mouthed “She’s in there!” 

White stood next to them and modified the channel on his headset. “Hey, Green. It’s White. We don’t want to hurt you. We know you are in your room.”

“I’m not opening my door! You all stay away from me! One of you is a murderer and you’re all trying to pin the crimes on me!”

Orange whispered to the other two, “that’s exactly what the imposter would say.”

“That’s a moronic thing to say, Orange,” precised Blue, “that’s what anybody would say in this situation.”

“That’s not moronic. You’re moronic.”

White put his hand on his microphone to shush the other two, then took his hand off. “Listen, Green. Why don’t you come out? We’ll have a nice reunion with the rest of the crew and you can plead your case.”

“So that you can all KILL ME? NO THANKS!”

“Come on, you can’t stay in there forever. You’ll need to eat eventually.”

“Tomorrow we’ll travel to the asteroid, and after that it’s one little jump towards Terra. I’m not coming out of this room until we reach a dock where there are other people who can protect me from you!”

Orange posed a hand on White shoulder. He put a hand on his mic. “I mean, we can lock her up in her room.”

“There’s a vent in there. She could…” He didn’t finish his sentence.

“She could what?” inquired Blue.

“I’m not sure. I do trust Purple’s judgment and she says there were things moving through the vents last night. It might have been the murderer. It might have been Green.”

“An hour ago, I would’ve said Purple’s theory was cuckoo crazy, but I can vouch for her in the Navigation Room. I know she had nothing to do with the lights and Pink’s injury back there, because I was strangling her during the blackout.”

Orange and Purple were trusting each other and would vouch for one another, noted Blue.

“I mean…” White’s eyebrow lifted up, as if his eyes were preemptively shocked by what his mouth was about to spout. “... I think it’s fair to say that Green has the narrowest shoulders in the crew. If anyone can crawl in these vents, it would be her.”

“Hmmm,” Blue shook her head, “even then… You’ve looked into those shafts, right? She’s narrow, but still once she reaches a ninety degrees corner, she would get stuck. If Purple heard something crawling in the vents, it wasn’t human. It couldn’t have been any member of the crew.”

“Then she could be in danger of something crawling in her room through the vent and killing her.”

“By that logic, we’re all in danger in our respective rooms when we go to sleep tonight.”

“We’re going to have to completely reconsider our sleeping solutions,” pondered White. “Maybe we could…”

“HELLO?” They were started by Green’s voice, heard in echo through White’s headset and faintly through the door of her room.

“Yes, we’re still here. Blue, Orange and me, Captain White. Green are you okay on your side?”

“Am I… I’m freaking out, so no I’m not okay.”

“We think you might be in danger, if you stay alone in your room something could crawl into the vent and attack you.”

“WHAT!? REALLY?”

“Yes, you should come out and be safe with us.” White tried to have a reassuring tone.

“It’s all a trick to get me out of here!”

Blue and Orange glared at White, who shrugged. “I tried,” he mouthed.

Blue took her own headset. “Green, buddy. I know the situation seems pretty dire, but we’re gonna have to work together all seven of us if we want to get through this.”

“... All seven?”

“Red and Purple are patching up Pink right now. She’ll probably pull through and we can all survive together until we get to CSC7. However, the Navigation Room has been damaged and I don’t know if I can get us there without you, my Navigation Officer.”

“... Captain?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“I’m pretty sure Orange and Blue killed Yellow. Don’t listen to them.”

Blue and Orange looked at White as Green's voice came out of his headset. “The audacity of this bitch,” muttered Orange. “We have to find a way to open her fucking door.”

White’s communicator beeped. He looked down and squinted at the little screen, attentively reading the notification.

“What is it?” asked Blue.

White didn’t respond. He silently turned and walked away, puzzling Blue and Orange. Blue didn’t know if it was best to follow White or to wait here with Orange. White stopped walking four doors away and faced it. He opened it, prompting Blue and Orange to walk up next to him. He stood in the doorway of Yellow’s room, communicator in hand, his eyes focused on the corner of the room. Blue stood next to him and spotted the little blinking light behind the ventilation grate. One of the two remaining ventilation maintenance robots was right behind it and Blue guessed it had sent the captain a notification. 

“What is it?” asked Blue, again.

“A robot spotted unusual bumps against the vent grate.”

“Okay, who cares?” Orange seemed much more interested in getting back to Green’s room.

White entered the room and took a quick look around. He quietly squatted down close to the vent and inspected the surroundings.

“You’re seeing anything?”

“Blood.”

“Wait, really?”

White pointed to the floor in front of the bathroom door, where Blue spotted a tiny speck of dried blood. The captain slowly walked to the bathroom and opened the door. Blue and Orange crowded next to him, pushing their heads through the narrow doorway. All three of them spotted a considerable amount of blood in the shower.

“What the fuck happened here.”

“I don’t know.” White took out his headset. “Purple? We found blood in Yellow’s shower. One of the maintenance robots spotted damage in the nearby grate.”

“What happened?” her voice resonated from the headset.

“I have no idea. But I don’t think it’s Yellow’s blood. It couldn’t be Pink’s blood either.”

Orange posed her hand on White’s shoulder and glimpsed around the bathroom, observing the splatter of blood. “Who’s blood is it, then?”

“I have no idea.”


	7. "There's only one room in the whole ship that doesn't have vents..."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew, or, well, what remains of the crew, takes a vote.

**VII**

The medical officer laid stable on an operating table, her head bandaged. Blue, Orange, Pink, Purple, Red and White stood next to her, everyone feeling a tad uncomfortable. Pink’s vital signs were stable, but she was still unconscious. 

“Are you sure we should leave Green by herself?”

“We positioned one of our remaining maintenance robots next to her vent, we’ll know if she tries to crawl out or if anything tries to crawl into her room through the vent.”

“That’s kinda messed up,” declared Purple. “I’m not sure I agree with the idea of a camera inside the private quarters of anyone.”

“The camera is watching the grate, from a distance, it’s not pointed towards the inside of the room,” precised White.

Red, his eyes still focused on Pink, added, “she’s also very probably the one who killed Yellow and hurt Pink.”

Purple contested, “we don’t know that. Innocent until proven guilty.”

“Let’s vote again then.”

“How is that fair? Green can’t defend herself.”

“Because she chose to run away and hide,” argued Orange. “But if you really want it to be fair, she still has access to your voting app on her communicator. We’ll send her a notification.”

“Maybe not.” White held a finger up, displaying a contemplative expression. “It might be easier to handle her if she doesn’t know we took a vote.”

“That’s also kinda messed up.”

“We’ll deduct one vote from Green’s tally, that’ll be her vote.”

“And if she does have a majority, what are we going to do? I’d say we could quarantine her in her room, but she’s already self-quarantining.”

“There’s the vent issue.”

“We should quarantine her in a room without vents.”

Red shuddered, “there’s only one room in the whole ship that doesn’t have vents…”

“You can’t be serious.”

“If she has a majority of votes, I say we put her there. We’ll just have to find a way to extract her from her room.”

“Can we even do that?” interjected Blue. “I thought the initial idea was to hide in the private quarters because the doors were impossible to hack.”

“Hard, harder with the Security Room damaged, but not impossible. However, the best way to extract her from the room would be to have her willingly open her door.”

“How about we vote first.”

“Alright,” said White, glancing at the other crewmates in the room. “We’ll raise our hand to vote. There are five of us here, so a majority would necessitate three votes. Considering the vote deducted for Green, that means we won’t do anything to her unless at least four of us vote against her.”

The crewmates looked at each other, then back at the captain. They nodded.

“Those who wish to vote against Green, raise your hand.”

White raised his hand. Red raised his hand. Orange raised her hand. Blue raised her hand. They turned their head towards Purple. Her hands didn’t budge.

“Purple?”

“Abstention.”

“Then we have four votes against Green, one abstention and Green’s vote. I’d also like to point out that Pink voted against Green during our first vote.”

“Then it’s decided.” Red had a severe look on his face. “Let’s find a way to bust open that door.”

* * *

Orange followed the group, still ambivalent about the next plan. White had overturned his previous decision and the five of them were thus making their way towards the Weapons Room. They had made sure to lock up the door to the Medbay after moving a bunch of furniture over the vent to block the grate from opening.

Upon arriving in Weapons, the captain stood in front of the large weapons locker. There were two handprint scanners on each side of the room, as well as a retinal scanner on the locker itself. Red and Purple each took place in front of a digital scanner and placed their hand, as those could be used by any member of the crew. The retinal scanner, however, would only allow access upon scanning the captain.

The weapons locker opened in front of White, who blinked several times because of the bright lights of the retinal scan. Mining equipment, flame throwers, high-intensity torches and a few actual firearms filled the wall behind the thick secure doors. Most of the ‘weapons’ were actually just extremely dangerous but highly-efficient tools that needed to be accounted for. 

“Which one would do the job?” asked the captain.

“We use this bad boy to cut through mineral matter.” Red pointed towards a handheld tool. “In theory, it can cut through minerals as hard as corundum, so I believe we could cut off the door with it.”

“Is there a risk the laser could pass right through the door and, you know, kill Green?”

Red stared blankly in silence for a few seconds. “... Yes. There is a risk.”

“Then we’ll leave the laser cutter in there, shall we?”

“It’s a plasma cutter, technically.”

“We could get a short-range torch to open a path in the door without the risk of killing everything on the other side. Or we could fuck up the control panel and physically pull the door open.”

Red walked up to the locker and picked up one of the torches, as well as a welding helmet. “I say we go with the torch idea.” He looked around, seeking the agreement of the other crewmates. “The other proposition might not work, I don’t know if breaking the access panel would allow us to open the door anyway.” The only person who truly understood how the locking mechanism on the doors worked would’ve been Yellow, the ship’s engineer, but he wasn’t available at the moment.

With the torch equipped, the captain locked up the remaining weapons and the group travelled back to the private quarters. They also picked up two fire extinguishers, just in case.

They five crewmates stood in front of Green’s room. White knocked on the door while Purple called in Green. 

“Hey, Green, Purple here, with the rest of the crew. We need you to come out of the room. The crew needs to stay together so everyone will be safe.”

“... we were all together in Navigation.”

“And we all have flashlights on us, so a blackout won’t affect us again the way it did before. We’ll also set up battery-powered floodlights in the rooms we plan to use.”

“I think I’ll stay in here.”

Orange nudged Red, who pulled up the torch, lit up the flame and stepped towards the door. Purple held a hand up to stop him in his way. She shook her head, causing Red to bring the torch down and snuff the flame.

“Green? Listen to me, we need you to come out. As long as you stay hidden from the crew, you’re building yourself up to be suspicious.”

“I didn’t hurt anyone, I didn’t kill anyone. I’m going to stay in my room until we reach home. You guys can stay together, I don’t care, I’m not risking getting killed with you.”

Purple tried for a little longer to convince Green to come out of her own volition, but to no avail. Green eventually closed off all communications and after a few repeated attempts from Purple to get her online, she reluctantly moved away from the door and motioned Red towards it. Orange and Blue stood close by with the extinguishers.

Red put on the welding helmet and turned on the torch and within seconds he was melting a trail within the metallic door. Purple’s communicator rang. Green was calling. Morosely, she held the communicator in front of her, without responding to the call. One by one, every other crewmate was being contacted, but no one picked up Green’s call. Orange tried to imagine how the Radar Officer must have felt, alone on the other side of a door that was currently being cut through. They could faintly hear Green’s muffled pleas as she screamed on the other side. 

White got a notification which got his attention. “Hurry up Red, the sentry just informed me that she opened the ventilation grate in her room. She’s going in! Come on, cut that fucking door!”

“Jesus, I’m doing my best here, give me a sec!”

The crew watched apprehensively as Red, kneeling down, finished cutting up a smaller entryway within the door, all while White checked up with the robot what Green was doing. “She’s trying to squeeze herself inside the vent. And she’s berating the robot. He’s giving me a transcript of what she’s yelling at it. Oh, that’s not nice.”

Red lifted up his helmet, stood up, took a step back and then kicked the door. He gave it four or five more kicks until the cut up portion yielded, falling on top of the bed and toppling on the side. The melted metal instantly caused the bedsheet to catch on fire. Blue shot the cooling gel at the smaller, newer door frame within the door and Orange rushed in, stepping on the middle hunk of metal while carefully avoiding the bright orange sides of the cut off portion. She sidestepped into a corner of the small room and blasted her extinguisher towards the bed, while White and Red rushed in towards the vent.

Green’s legs were still sticking out of the vent, so Red and White each grabbed a boot and pulled. The room was filled with yelling and smoke. A ray of light entered the already well-lit room as Purple turned on her flashlight, just in case another blackout occurred. As Green was pulled out of the room, Orange couldn’t help but think that the door was much thinner than she had been expecting. It was certainly much thinner than the heavy duty doors of the weapons locker.

* * *

Green was carried, kicking and screaming, into the Storage Room. She was ranting incoherently and crying while trying to free herself from her restraint, but there wasn’t much she could do against five people. 

Blue opened the door to the Airlock, the only room on the ship with no ventilation shafts. She watched as Green was pushed in, then she closed the door. Green came to the small window in the middle of the door and started knocking on it while screaming. They could faintly hear her yelling but they couldn’t make out the exact words. Once she seemingly realized that, she put on her headset and tried calling in a group call with the rest of the crew. They all picked up this time.

“Please, please don’t kill me, I haven’t done it I swear!”

“We’re not going to kill you,” precised Purple. “You’ll be alright, this is just temporary. There should be enough oxygen in the room until we reach CSC7.” 

“We are incarcerating you in the airlock, for the safety of the crew. There was a vote and a majority voted against you.”

“There’s was a vote? You voted without me?”

“Purple already voiced a similar concern, but we did subtract one vote against you to consider your right to vote.”

“... That’s a huge load of bullshit.”

“The majority of the crew believes you are responsible for the murder of Yellow and the vicious attack on Pink. The fact that you ran and hid didn’t help your case.”

“... Why didn’t you just lock me up in my room then?”

“Couldn’t risk you venturing through the vents.”

“I can’t do that, when you burst through my door I tried escaping by the vents and I got stuck halfway in, you saw! You pulled me out!”

“I’m sorry Green. You’ll have to stay in there until we reach a station.”

She opened her mouth, as if about to protest the group’s decision, but it seemed like she knew there was nothing she could say to make them change their mind. They left the group call, until Green was left alone in the Airlock with her thoughts.

The five crew members closed in around each other to talk about their next course of action.

“I say we set up battery-powered floodlights in the main rooms of the ship, in case there’s still a traitor left among us,” proposed Purple, who hadn’t voted against Green.

“Yeah, no. That can wait.” White’s seriousness was heightened. His tone, his posture, his eyebrows, everything about him betrayed how troubled he was by the recent turn of events. “Now that we’ve taken care of Green, I think our priority should be to inspect what the fuck happened in Yellow’s room.”

With all that had happened with Green, some of the crewmates had forgotten about the bloody shower. 

“We have to find who’s blood that is. I’m sure we got analyzers or whatever in Medbay that can tell us that. Red, you can operate the machines there, right?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s mostly Pink’s station but I do some of my biological analysis there. I can scan some blood for DNA, no problem. I know the Brain has our genetic information.”

The crewmates moved up to the private quarters, reaching Yellow’s room. Red told the crew to wait outside while he collected a sample. They watched from the doorway as he put on some gloves and then entered the bathroom, opening the cabinet over the sink.

“Why are you rummaging through Yellow’s toiletry?” asked Orange.

Silently, a hand came out of the bathroom’s doorway, holding a box of cotton swabs, then vanished back in. Not long after, Red came out of the bathroom holding two bloodied cotton swabs. The crew moved back down to the cafeteria and carefully sidestepped to avoid the blood that covered the floor, then walked towards the Medbay.

White’s communicator beeped. The other four stared at him uncomfortably. Before he could even tell them what it was, they had all guessed that he had gotten a notification from the maintenance robots. He brought the small screen close to his face and watched with a curious expression. “That’s… That’s impossible.”

“What is it capt’n?”

“The…“ he looked up at his crewmates. “The robot just saw someone moving through the vents.”

Red lifted an eyebrow. “That is strange indeed. This cou-”

White cut him off, “that’s not the weirdest part. The robot says it just saw Yellow.”

The crew was silent. They looked at each other, some with confusion, others with apprehension. White walked away from the Medbay and towards the Cafeteria.

“Apparently he was seen crawling around near Storage.”

“But his corpse was in Medbay, with Pink. Shouldn’t we check up on her?”

White, standing in the middle of the Cafeteria, looked through the hallway leading to Storage and for a moment seemed to consider Red’s point and was about to walk back to Medbay. However, his eyes grew wide as he suddenly said, “I think I just saw someone moving through Storage.”

Purple looked around and saw White, Red, Orange and Blue all standing close. “If you did see someone it has to be either Pink or Green, We should check it out.”

White and Purple made their way to the Storage Room, followed closely by Orange and Blue. Red glanced towards the Medbay hallway and then followed the rest of the gang. As he walked into Storage, he stopped in his tracks next to the other four. All five crewmates stood in shock, as they stared at Yellow standing next to the Airlock.

They were too stunned by this sight to pick up their communicator. Green, panicking and knocking on the glass as she stared at Yellow, desperately tried to contact the crewmates. With his back turned to her, she could see the huge gash between his shoulder blades where the axe had lacerated him.

Orange stepped forward, her eyes glued on the engineer. “Yellow?” she muttered, her voice shaking.

The crewmates looked at him in silence. The more they stared, the more they realized that the husk in front of them was not Yellow. It stood awkwardly on its legs, like a baby giraffe still in the process of learning how to walk. Its face moved in unnatural ways, showing at times fear, sadness, anger or joy, with no particular rhyme or reason. They looked as it bent its neck backwards and they heard the sound of his vertebraes struggling and then snapping as he looked back into the little window at Green. Orange stopped in her tracks and let out a gasp, which seemed to alert Yellow (or whatever that thing that looked like Yellow was) and he quickly lifted his head back up towards her. Disturbing noises reminiscent of broken bones and snapped muscles followed each distorted movement, making the crewmates cringe.

It opened its mouth, letting out a loud aberrant cry, causing Orange to put hands over her ears. It sounded like a hair dryer that had gained consciousness, screaming in pain as it was being crushed to death. It stepped to its right, lifting its legs and dropping it on its ankle, causing it to dislocate. It lifted one arm and brought it against the control panel of the Airlock. 

Red pointed at it. “He’s going to open the door and free Green!”

In a way, Red was right. 

* * *


	8. Kill it with Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yellow is back!
> 
> But is he really back?

**VIII**

“Oh my god, what the fuck, oH MY GOD, WHAT THE FUCK!?” Blue panicked at the sight before her. Yellow, or rather something that looked like Yellow, had opened the outer door of the Airlock, sending Green into the cold, crushing void of space. The creature lumbered awkwardly towards Orange, the closest crewmate to it.

Purple, Red and White stood in shock. Orange held her hands up, begging Yellow to stay away from her. Blue, her face petrified with dread, walked back into a wall of boxes and stuck there in silence. Yellow jolted forward into Orange’s arms and she caught him under his shoulders as he tried to hit her and maybe even bite her, it was hard to know for sure what was its course of action.

Red turned to White and Purple and simply whispered, “Pink…” before rushing past them towards Medbay. Purple looked back at Orange just in time to see her fall on her back, Yellow on top of her. 

“Get the fuck off me! Whatever the fuck you are, you are not Yellow!”

It garbled in response, causing further panic in Orange for its voice sounded like an amalgame of voices. The distorted sounds coming out of its mouth were like an antique tape recorder playing a broken recording of an angry shrieking mob. Yellow’s mouth tore on the sides, opening up wider as blood seeped out from its shredded cheeks. Orange screamed in horror as a disfigured wrist with two malformed fingers pushed out of the gaping maw, slowly descending towards her face.

A loud hollow sound filled Orange’s ears as Purple swung one of the metallic fire extinguishers at Yellow, hitting it on the side of its head. It destabilized it long enough for it to look up at Purple, and with a defiant look it gagged, causing the inhuman arm to slither out a little more with each second. Purple, horrified, lifted the extinguisher again and swung hard, breaking Yellow’s neck. The loud ‘crunch’ and the head hanging limply reassured her momentarily, but as the body started moving again, she angrily hit again. And again. And again. And on the fifth hit, Yellow head detached and rolled away into the hallway leading to Electrical. The neck hole bubbled, sending spittle of blood down on Orange.

Purple kicked the body to the side and helped Orange up, who was trembling and covered with blood. She hugged Orange to reassure her, patting her on the back. While holding her, she glanced at White, who stood in shock a few meters away. 

“Hey. Captain. Wake up.”

White looked at her. “I’m awake.”

“Then fucking act like it. Don’t just stand there like a rotten cheese. There might be more of these things on the ship, we’re going to have to stay alert if we want to make it out alive. That goes for you too Blue.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” whispered Orange. 

Purple looked at her, then followed her line of sight, landing on the headless corpse of Yellow on the ground. The arms were slowly stretching out, and the leg pushed it on its back. It folded its knees, the soles on the ground, pushing up its pelvis while the arms wiggled senselessly on its side. Orange and Purple, mortified, stepped away from the corpse. The torso wriggled, as if it was filled with elongated worms, then it burst open, revealing a dozen long tentacles made of muscles, sinews, veins and guts, twisted and tied on each other into patchworks ropes of flesh. Long articulated ‘legs’ seemingly made out of rib bones burst out of the hole, landing on the floor around it and propping the corpse higher. The elongated ropes of flesh wiggled in every direction, as if scanning the room around it for the other crewmates.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” proposed White. 

All four of them ran towards the Cafeteria, hearing behind them a deep raspy howl coming from the Storage Room, as if the mutilated corpse was trying to push air into where there used to be a mouth. Red joined them in the Cafeteria, eyes watering up. “I can’t find Pink, I went to the Medbay and the doors were wide open and it was empty, I don’t know where she’s gone.”

Purple was about to say something about Pink, when she noticed the handheld welder torch on Red’s belt. She had an idea. She ran up to him, posed her hands on his shoulders and reassured him. “Hey, Red, calm down. I’m sure Pink ran away and is hiding somewhere, we’ll find her, don’t think about that. Right now, I need you to focus on me and my voice, but most importantly, I need to borrow your torch.”

She took it from his belt and he opened his mouth as if to protest, but said nothing. She ran back towards Storage. She knew White, Blue and Orange were probably wondering whether she had gone crazy. As she entered the room cautiously, she glanced left and right, trying to find Yellow. There was flesh writhing on the ground, bits of guts and muscle left on their own, slithering and shaking in search of god-knows-what. Then, the raspy sound caught Purple’s ear and she stepped farther into the room, spotting the mass of flesh that was slowly crawling into the hallway next to Communication. The other four stood behind her and Red, who hadn’t seen the abomination yet, moved back and bent over against a wall, dry heaving.

Purple handed the torch to White “Would you be a dear and hold this for me please?” White was a dear. Purple went back into Storage, leaving the other crewmates to stand guard on the horrid body moving farther in the hallway. She came back with a relatively small metal cylinder.

“What the hell is that?”

“Hydrogen.”

She opened the valve on top and rolled the hissing cylinder towards Yellow. As it touched one of the tentacles, the creature went haywire and furiously attacked the cylinder, quickly grasping it with malformed limbs and swallowing it within its open torso. It quickly realized that it wasn’t organic matter, but not faster than Purple put her plan in motion. She typed a command into the door of the Storage Room and right before entering the last digit, she lit up the flame at the end of the torch and threw it into the room. She closed the door and the crew waited, until eventually they heard what seemed like the muffled noise of a raging inferno on the other side.

“Is it going to explode?” worriedly asked Blue.

“Hydrogen cylinder surrounded by hot flames? Yeah, I think it will explode,” responded Red.

As he finished his sentence, a loud boom erupted on the other side of the door. Purple looked at the other crewmates with a smug look.

“You might have blown a hole in our hull though,” stated Red.

“Oh shit, I might have yeah.” She was now worried that her explosion plan might have negative side effects. “Brain, are we leaking Oxygen on the ship?”

“Negative,” stated the robotic voice of the ship’s centralized computer.

“Well, that’s good. Though we might wanna get in there and work our extinguishers.”

“It’s gonna be extinguisher, singular, sadly. I used Orange’s to beat the head out of Yellow.”

“Oh shit, the head!” Orange yelled.

Purple tapped a command on the door panel to open it. “We’ll start with extinguishing here, then we’ll go hunt the head.”

As the door opened, they were hit by a cloud of dark opaque smoke, which was perfumed with the pungent smell of burnt human flesh, or in this case burnt humanoid flesh. Bits of fuming blackened meat covered the floor, walls and ceiling and flames were coming out of the main hunk in the middle of the hallway. Blue, gagging entered the room and tried not to puke as she slathered the burnt flesh with coolant. The hallway would need a thorough scrubbing and a new paint job, but most of the metal walls were undamaged. A few places had bone shards embedded in the walls, but not deep enough for serious damage. Once the fire extinguished, the crew ran back through Storage, where a trail of blood led them into Electrical. Yellow’s head had apparently rolled, or crawled, into a vent and was now lost. When the crew thought things couldn’t get any worse, the ship’s alarm went off, declaring a malfunction in the Greenhouse.

* * *

“I can’t fucking believe you.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“I SAW YOU. YOU OPENED THE AIRLOCK AND KILLED ME!”

“How many times must I tell you, that thing was NOT me! Whatever it is, it was masquerading as me, puppeteering my remains. I mean, just look.”

Yellow pointed down into the ship and Green watched as the body of the former engineer turned into a grotesque abomination.

“Ewww what the fuck.”

“I told you.”

“So, what exactly is happening right now?”

“We’re ghosts.”

“Damn. Hoppenheimer must be rolling in his grave right now. Maybe even literally.”

“Who?”

“A famous Meta-physicist from the Mars University. He published a study in the ‘80s proving with hard evidence that there was no afterlife and no souls.”

“Well well well, looks like he was wrong and a dummy.”

“Well, our ethereal state could be caused by interaction with the artefact we were sent to retrieve. I mean, if it can split souls from the body, I get why the corporate dumbos wouldn’t give us info on it.”

“You think the foreign object could have caused that too?” Ghost Yellow asked, pointing down at the headless corpse sprouting slithering tentacles.

“I… Maybe… Hey, as ghosts, is there anything we can do to help the crew right now?”

“I’ve been screaming at all of you since yesterday and no one ever heard me, so we can't alert them about the shambling corpse's movements... “

“I’m sure there’s something we could do. Ghosts can move objects, right? Wouldn’t there be a way we could assist the survivors on the ship?”

“Maybe. Maybe.”

Ghost Green pondered for a moment, then asked, "by the way, Yellow… who murdered you?"

* * *

There was a severe malfunction in the oxygen filtering system. The five crewmates, Blue, Orange, Purple, Red and White, ran to the Greenhouse where Red sat in front of the main terminal. As Science Officer, he was the most qualified to assess the emergency within the air quality systems.

"What seems to be the problem, Red" The captain stood behind him, arms folded, looking at the screen.

"The air filtration is faulty. We have to fix that A.S.A.P or else the ship will fill with carbon monoxide and poison us within twenty four hours.”

“Probably even quicker if there are any fires within the ship, which is likely to happen considering what we are facing," noted Blue.

Red looked back at her with a confused look.

“Purple knocked off Yellow’s head and he kept moving. The hydrogen explosion seemed to have stopped it in its tracks.”

A light appeared behind Red’s eye. “We should get back to the Weapons locker.”

White let out a succinct, “flamethrower.”

“We have more than a few hours before we suffocate, I say we get them first and then come back here.”

“Wait,” started Orange, her shirt still stained with the blood of the abomination. “who’s going to hold the flamethrowers? They could be very dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“I’m taking one,” stated Purple.

“Me too,” added Red.

Orange scoffed. “Wow, ok. This isn’t a first come first serve situation.”

Red stood up and walked past her to stand next to the captain. “I know I’m not an imposter, so I can wield one of the throwers.”

“That’s pretty suspicious.”

“Why? How?”

“I don’t know, you sound pretty suspicious, Red.”

Blue chimed in, “Yeah, Orange’s right.”

“What the hell, why am I suspicious all of a sudden?”

“You’re a good liar, Red, if anyone in the room is lying it would be you.”

“That’s messed up, you got no ground to accuse me, you just want to protect your own ass. We haven’t cleared Orange and Blue yet, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that you two are the imposters.”

“Nice try, asshole,” berated Orange, “but we didn’t move out of the Navigation Room during the first murder and during the blackout I was strangling Purple so I couldn’t have attacked Pink.”

“To be fair, I can’t vouch for you,” clarified Purple. “You choked me out, I was unconscious during the blackout. I don’t know if you stayed on me or if you went and pummeled Pink.”

“What! You’d stand with him against me!?”

“I’m not standing with anyone right now. The only person I fully trust is myself.”

“Same,” said White and Blue at the same time.

As they all stood watching each other, awkwardly waiting for someone to take the first step out of the room towards Weapon, they were interrupted by a shy cough coming from the hallway. Red and White, standing in the doorway, slowly turned their head, seeing a scared Pink in front of the Greenhouse door.

* * *

Pink stood in front of the doorway, half her head still covered in bandages. Red walked up to her and hugged her, seemingly happy to see that she was safe and well.

“Where were you?” Red asked, his voice portraying a mix of joy and anxiety.

“I…” she paused, her eyes growing wide and tears appearing in the corners. “When I woke up, I saw the white sheet move. At first I thought it was some indecorous prank and I told the room to cut it out, I didn’t know who was doing it. But then the sheet fell down on the ground. Yellow, or rather, his corpse, was moving. I panicked, I ran out, I hid. It’s horrible. We have to find it and kill it.”

“That’s already done.”

“Well, not completely. The head is still wandering somewhere.”

“The WHAT?”

“Yellow’s head. The body was decapitated and blasted to charred bits, but the head is still crawling somewhere in the vents.”

“What the ever-loving fuck.”

“Yeah.” 

“Can the robots find the head?”

“Oh shit,” blabbed White, “one of the robots is still standing guard next to the private quarters. I’ll send a command to start patrolling the shafts again.”

“But the other two robots, they haven’t seen the head?” asked Pink.

“... One of the robots is out of order.”

“Oh…”

The crewmates didn’t explain to Pink how the robot was damaged.

“I’ll tell the robots to focus on finding the head.”

“And once they find it, we’re gonna have to burn it,” Red declared, bringing the crew’s mind back on the flamethrowers.

Pink watched as the rest walked out of the Greenhouse, the alarm still blaring. Right now, getting weapons seemed more important than fixing the Greenhouse. She hadn’t heard the previous discussion and thus looked towards the air control terminal with confusion while crewmates walked away from the room. Red grabbed her arm and pulled her with the group, leading her with them towards the Weapons Room. Purple and Orange stamped their hands on the digital scanners, while White brought his eye in front of the retinal scanner. As the weapons locker opened, the six crewmates looked at the selection of tools and then glanced at each other.

“There are only two flamethrowers.”

“Should we take other weapons too in case?”

“I don’t know if the best solution is to arm everyone, there might still be an imposter in the ship.”

“Wait, where’s Green?” Pink looked around, noticing that there were only six people standing in the room.

The room went silent. Eyes glanced away and down, until eventually Purple stepped up to explain what had happened. “They voted and then locked Green in the Airlock, but Yellow came back from the dead and jettisoned her into the void.”

Pink teared up upon hearing the news. “Green… is dead? What the fuck, this is a nightmare!”

“And killed by some kind of reanimated mutated Yellow, at that.”

“Maybe that was revenge,” started Orange, “maybe Yellow came back as a reanimated corpse to kill the crew member that murdered him?”

“But then why would Green kill him in the first place? If she did murder him, now we can never know what her motives were.”

“Yeah, I don’t buy the whole Yellow came back to avenge his murder,” attested Purple. “I think that’s just a theory Orange whipped up so that you gang won’t feel bad for voting to put Green in a coffin.”

“Ok then, if Green was innocent, that means there’s still one murderer among us,” claimed Red.

“Or two. The blood stains in Yellow’s shower could be from someone being turned into something like Yellow,” White reminded the crew.

“Could the blood be from Yellow himself, like his corpse was taken into his room and bled there?” asked Blue.

“I highly doubt it. When we brought Pink to the Medbay, there hadn’t been any signs indicating that his corpse was moved. At this point, everything’s possible, but I’m pretty certain that the blood in the shower wasn’t Yellow’s.”

“Wait, what shower blood?”

“While you were unconscious in the Medbay, we found traces that something went through the vent in Yellow’s room and we found blood in his shower. We believe someone was dragged in there and, well, whatever happened to Yellow’s corpse might have happened to another crewmate.”

“Red, you still got those cotton swabs?”

Red checked in his pockets, until he eventually found one broken swab, the bloody side covered in lint and hair. “I seem to have lost one swab and the other is, well, dirty.”

Pink looked at the bloodied dusty swab and simply said: “Yep, that’s contaminated.”

“I guess we’ll have to swing back through the Private Quarters to get new blood samples.”

“All right let’s go then,” announced Orange.

“Wait, we still haven’t decided who’s going to carry the flamethrowers!”

“We have to give it to someone that’s beyond reproach. Someone we know for a fact couldn’t be implicated in this.”

Red winced. “I don’t think there’s anyone in here that can be totally exonerated. Especially if we assume there might be two imposters.”

“Well, I think I should have one,” declared Purple. “White and Red can vouch for me during the first murder, Orange can vouch for me during the blackout and I’m the only one who didn’t vote to murder Green.”

“Again, if there are two imposters, your arguments are invalid,” stated Red.

“The fact that you’re opposing me so hard on this is pretty suspicious. Are you sure you don’t have a hidden agenda against a trusted member of the crew holding a weapon? May I remind you that I am the one who warned the crew against the vents? And now with Yellow’s apparition we understand how some ‘people’ within the ship are able to move through the ventilation shafts. They’re not humans.”

“I say we vote,” proposed White. The crew agreed. “All in favor of Purple holding a flamethrower?” 

Blue, Orange, White and Purple held up their hand.

“Those opposed to Purple holding a flamethrower?”

Red held up his hand. The captain looked at Red, who stood alone against the other fours. Then, he looked towards Pink, who hadn’t voted. He called her name. She staggered and held up her arm against a wall for balance. “I’m sorry… lost some blood… don’t feel great… give me a minute.”

The captain understood and walked up to her, posing a hand on her shoulder and telling her that everything would be alright. While he reassured her, Blue and Orange moved between Red and Purple, glaring at Red while Purple grabbed a flamethrower. She put on the gasoline backpack and held up the cannon forward, meeting Red’s eyes with a defiant look. “Congratulations Purple, you got your toy. Anyone else thinks it’s kinda dangerous if only one of us is armed?”

“And who would take the second flamethrower? You?”

“Yeah, could be. I know I trust myself.”

“See, that’s the problem,” declared Blue, “I don’t especially trust you.”

“Neither do I,” added Orange.

“Red, Purple, Blue, Orange, stop bickering. We’ve got some blood to sample.”

The crew made their way towards the Private Quarters. The Greenhouse alarm was becoming a familiar noise within the ship. They still had time left before they needed to get to it, claimed Red. Orange walked close to Pink and whispered something about Red, if he was one of the imposters it would be very possible that he could be lying about how much time the crew had before repairs of the oxygenation would be critical. Blue stood close to them and agreed with what Orange had just said, which made Pink wonder if Orange had been whispering loud enough for Red to also hear it. If he did hear, he made no show out of it.

The crew reached Yellow’s room. As Red took out a pair of gloves, Pink passed by him. “Stand down, Science Officer. This is medical business, I get to do the sampling.” She went into the room, gloves on, picked some cotton swabs and rubbed them in some of the blood remaining at the bottom of the shower. She held them carefully as the crew moved towards the Medbay. 

The captain got a notification. One of the robots had spotted something crawling through the vents near the Lower Engine Room, but had quickly lost it. “We don’t have time for this right now…” he muttered.

The crew got into the Medbay. The furnitures that had been stacked over the vents had been thrown to the side, obviously by Yellow when he woke up. But another disheartening sight was some screens were shattered and some machines had been battered or stomped.

“Damn, what happened here?”

“I’m gonna assume Yellow did some damage to the equipment when he got up, before crawling into the vents. I don’t know for sure, as soon as I saw it move under the sheet, I ran the fuck out of the room.” Pink sat in front of a seemingly intact terminal and pushed one of the swabs into the machine. 

“Do we still have the proper equipment to analyze the blood?”

“Yeah, this should do. I just need to cross-reference the analyzed blood with our medical database and it should give us the information we need. In the meantime, I’d suggest you look at each other, try to find if anyone in the room looks more anxious than they should be right now.”

As she said that, she looked back towards the screen in front of her, while the other crewmates glared at each other, coming up with theories within their heads and observing the facial cues of the people they already suspected. Purple stood back against a wall not too far from the room’s door and she had her hand firmly on the flamethrower, ready to ignite it if need be. Blue and Orange stood next to her, flanking her like bodyguards, their eyes darting between the other crewmates and sometimes towards each other. White stood against the back wall, eyes alternating between the main door and the large vent in the other corner of the room. Red sat on a counter next to Pink, trying to maintain eye contact with whoever looked in his direction.

Pink slowly stood up and walked away from the terminal, standing next to the captain, her eyes focused on the trio next to the main door. She clearly looked horrified. The crewmates watched her anxiously, then Red walked up to the computer screen where she had done the analysis. He turned his eyes towards the trio of Blue, Orange and Purple looking back at him. None of them said anything, but all three had an inquisitive look in their eyes that seemed to spell out ‘Who is it?’

Red somberly announced, “according to the analysis, the blood was… Purple’s.”

* * *

  
  



	9. Blood Test Results

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drama in the Medbay!
> 
> This chapter introduces fan-favorite "Danger". I am fan. Danger is my favorite character.

**IX**

The tension in the room was suffocating. Blue and Orange carefully stepped away from Purple, unsure of what was the proper thing to do. Red and White held their hands up in front of them and were trying to calm Purple. “Easy, easy, you don’t want to do anything stupid right now.”

“Of course I don’t, because that wasn’t my fucking blood!” She held the flamethrowers firmly in front of her, switching targets between the Science Officer and the Captain as they slowly approached her.

“I hear you, I hear you, but right now we’re gonna need you to drop the flamethrower.”

“I’m not dropping shit, there’s a traitor in this room and I only know that it isn’t me.”

Orange, carefully stepping away, said, “that’s what an imposter would s-” 

“Oh would YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!? If I hear one more person say iT’s WhaT THe ImPoSTer wOULd SaY!! I’m going to light a fucking bonfire. Also, Red, that’s close enough. Don’t you take a single more step towards me you murderous fuck.”

“Why would I be the murderer? It was your blood in the shower.”

“It wasn’t, I would know if I had lost a pint of blood in someone else’s room. Maybe you went into the medical refrigerator and took a sample of my blood that you later dropped in Yellow’s bathroom. Or maybe you said my name despite the blood being someone else’s.”

“That’s ridiculous, I don’t have the key to the medical refrigerator. And I literally read the name on the computer screen. The blood sample belongs to Communications Officer B.B. Purple, that’s you. You don’t believe me? Here, come read the screen yourself.”

“I’m perfectly fine standing where I am, I’m not stepping any closer to you. Orange, Blue, go check the screen.”

Orange and Blue weren’t sure if they should follow Purple’s orders, considering the last turn of events. Orange ended up motioning Blue to stay put while she went to the screen. Considering Purple was armed with a flamethrower, it was better to not put every other crewmate in the same half of the room. Orange reached the medical terminal, looked up the analysis results, then turned back to the flamethrower-wielding officer.

“It says it’s Purple’s blood.”

“Bullshit, it’s Red who’s trying to mess with…”

Purple stopped talking. Her eyes grew wide and she flicked on the flame at the end of her weapon. Everyone in the room suddenly became much more on edge.

“Oh. My. God. I know who is the imposter.”

“I’m sure we’d all like to hear your theory, but I really need you to drop your weapon,” White hesitated to give a direct order, because the last thing he wanted was to antagonize Purple further.

“It’s Pink.”

White kept his hands up, still trying to calm down Purple. “I hear you. I hear you. Right now you are cornered. You are looking for an exit and that is totally understandable, but the last thing you want to do is to use that flamethrower. We are your friends, Purple, you don’t want to hurt us.”

“Captain, with all due respect, shut up. Think about it. It’s Pink. It’s been her since the beginning. She killed Yellow, going through the vents from Greenhouse to Communications to Security. In the middle of the night she killed someone and mutilated their body in Yellow’s room where no one would see her.”

“What the fuck, I would never kill-”

“Shut up. SHUT THE FUCK UP. You, and especially you, need to keep your mouth shut or I’m going to torch you right here right now.”

Red moved in front of Pink, as if to shield her from any potential flames. “If you’re so certain that she’s the impostor, why aren’t you torching her already.”

“Because someone in this room might be in leagues with her and I want to know who before burning her. Red, you seem very protective of her, is there anything you wanna tell us?”

“If she was an imposter, then why was she injured in the Navigation Room?”

Purple pondered for a moment. Her eyes darted to the table where Pink had laid earlier, then her eyes moved further to a second bloodied operating table. The table where Yellow had laid dead. A smile crept up against her will as she had an epiphany. She looked back to Red, with a satisfied look. “I know why.”

“... Why then?”

“Yeah, why?” asked Orange.

“She wanted to be left alone here. Left alone with Yellow’s corpse. And I believe whatever she did to it, she did to someone else in Yellow’s room.”

Red looked at Purple for a second, then slowly turned to Pink. 

“That’s not true,” she said, her eyes watering up. “I would never do any of that messed up shit.”

White then asked, “but, since it was your blood in the shower, wouldn’t that mean that you are the second imposter?”

“And who just did the medical analysis? If anyone could falsify medical results, my guess would go to the Medical Officer.” Purple’s answer made White’s eyebrow lift. He turned his sight towards Pink and so did Red.

Red looked back at Pink, fear growing in his eyes. “Pink?”

But she did not respond. Tears flowed out of her eyes, but as Red looked closer, he realized that it wasn’t tears.

White received a notification. He looked at his communicator just in time to see the message from one of the robots. Yellow’s head was in Electrical.

A loud buzz filled the room as the neon lights of the Medbay were shut down. 

* * *

The oxygen alarm fell silent. Lights went out. Computer screens were nothing more than empty sheets of glass. The only source of illumination in the room was the little flame at the tip of the flamethrower. The panicked crewmates fumbled for their flashlights.

The silence of the mute alarm was replaced by a repetitive clicking sound. Red couldn’t see much in the darkness but he could hear the Geiger meter on his hip getting noisier with every second. A similar sound seemed to come from the direction of the flame, as the meter on Purple’s hip clicked in unison with Red’s. 

In the darkness and in panic, Blue dropped her flashlight, which cracked and rolled under a table. Orange rushed out of the room. Purple wanted to take out her own flashlight but her hands were full with the flamethrower, so she walked back against a wall.

“If anyone approaches me I’ll burn you!” 

White was the first to light up his flashlight and he opened it forward, towards Purple. Blinded by the ray of light, she pressed the trigger momentarily, sending a thin wreath of flame forward, illuminating the room. Red’s sleeve caught on fire, but luckily for him Purple’s flame didn’t last long enough to burn more of him.

“Purple! Stand down!” yelled White.

“I’m sorry! It was an accident!” Then, as she gazed past Red, in the light of the fire on his arm, she saw it. “Red! Behind you!”

Red, busy trying to extinguish his sleeve, glanced back at Pink. She was trembling and her face was oozing something. In the dim light, it was hard to say for sure, but it seemed to him like thick coagulated blood was pouring out of her eyes, nose and mouth. Her shirt was being ripped open from the inside and he saw her belly open, revealing a mouth of sort with teeth made out of rib bones. She let out a terrifying shriek before hitting him with her arm, sending him flying towards Purple and Blue. Both crewmates were knocked down, Purple dropping the nozzle of the flamethrower and hitting her head on a table corner. White, now brandishing his light towards Pink, let out a terrified howl as he saw the abomination she had become. Sharp bones were protruding from all over her body, ribs coming out of her arms, belly and even on the left side of her neck. The noise coming out of her throat was anything but human.

Red, still dazed from being thrown, slowly got up. Once he remembered where he was, he turned quickly towards where Pink was. White was hitting her with a chair, desperately trying to stop her from getting to them. With Purple knocked out, the flamethrower was up for grab and the monster clearly knew it. Red grabbed Purple by the shoulder, shouting at her to wake up, then slapped her. Her eyes fluttered and she instinctively punched up, hitting Red in the face. She looked up just in time to see Pink stab into the chair with one of her extra ribs, pulling it to bring White closer. Her arm split in half right in the middle, revealing a large broken bone. 

As Purple fumbled to grab the flamethrower nuzzle, she watched in horror as Pink stabbed White in the belly. Then, the muscles in her shoulder tore up and she stepped back, leaving her arm embedded in the captain’s abdomen. The one-armed Pink then turned her focus on Purple, her voice a mix of gasping and gurgling. Blood spewed out around the ribs coming out of her neck, air pushing through the many new holes in her throat. Blue stood back up, watching Purple on the ground and Pink approaching them. Before she had time to react, the room was filled with a war cry. “This is for Yellow you bastard!”

Orange ran into the room, her flashlight open, strapped in one of her belt loops and she was holding up a fire axe. Pink crouched and extended her remaining arm in a defensive posture, but she wasn’t able to block the attack and the axe dug itself into her shoulder. Pink and Orange had a bit of a tug-o-war, Pink trying to pull Orange within biting distance, while Orange did her best to keep the monster at axe’s length. However, Orange didn’t anticipate her opponent splitting itself in the middle, letting her axe go through. The creature grabbed Orange’s left wrist, who’s rage turned into fear. Red jumped next to Orange and kicked Pink on the thighs, making her stagger backward. Pink’s wrist tore up, spewing blood and ligaments as she jumped backward, leaving her hand on Orange’s wrist. Orange screamed in horror, echoing White’s shrieks of pain in the background. The axe fell on the ground.

Blue was slowly getting back on her feet, hiding behind a table while looking at the monstrous abomination. 

“Out of my way!” shouted Purple, standing up and holding the nozzle forward. Orange kept trying to pull off the hand on her wrist, but she sidestepped against a wall, while Red jumped out of the way towards the other wall. Pink, however, had jumped back on to White. A deformed clawed hand burst out of her mangled shoulder and grabbed her arm, which was still digging into the captain’s gut. By pulling up on the arm, she pulled him up with her, using him as a shield just in time. Purple pointed the nozzle forward, but hesitated at the sight of the captain being dangled like a bleeding puppet. He turned his head back and, between howls, let out a pained “Burn it! BUUURN IT!” The next thing that came out of his mouth was a geyser of blood.

Purple pressed the trigger, sending flames towards White and Pink. The captain caught on fire and the monstrosity shrieked in what might have been pain. The room basked in the warm light of the flame, Red and Orange against the walls hoping the fire wouldn’t touch them, but Orange also had the stress of having a mutilated hand grasping her wrist. She could feel Pink’s grip, her fingers slowly trying to dig into her flesh. Once Purple let go of the trigger, she watches carefully for sights of Pink. Blue quickly moved in, her extinguisher held up, glancing left and right for sight of the imposter. Seeing a trail of ashes leading towards the vent, she shook her head and then turned her extinguisher towards the burning body of the captain.

“Fuck! Get it off me!” Orange still struggled with the hand. Red grabbed the fire axe on the ground and tried to gauge whether he could hit Pink’s severed hand without hurting Orange. Before he could do anything, Orange screamed in pain as blood gushed out under her hand. “It’s getting inside my skin!”

Blue, Red and Purple gathered around her, trying to choose the best course of action. They watched in horror as Pink’s finger moved under Orange’s skin. Her face wrecked by panic, she looked up at Red and nodded. He understood. She placed her hand on a nearby operating table and Red lifted the fire axe. Purple had her flamethrower ready.

* * *

The remaining crewmates took a few minutes to catch their breath in the Cafeteria. Orange, wide-eyed, rubbed the bandaged stump of her left wrist. Purple held the nozzle of her flamethrower with shaky hands. Red and Blue had tried getting food from the printer, but they were offline thanks to the electrical failure. They instead resorted to one of the Whiskey bottles hidden in a cupboard under the food printer. They brought four glasses to the central table where Purple and Orange were sitting, three flashlights positioned strategically on the table to light the area around. Red suggested everyone pour their own whiskey to avoid someone else infecting their drink.

“Do you really think there’s another imposter left?” asked Purple.

“Can’t be sure. Better not to take any risk.”

“I can’t feel my left arm,” blabbered Orange.

“Yeah that’ll be the local anesthetic. It’s better than pumping you full of morphine, we all need to have our full wits right now.

“Damn, I could almost forget I just had my hand cut off.”

“We’ll get you a prosthesis when we get back home.”

They drank their whiskey in silence, taking a much needed five minutes.

“Rest in peace, captain White.”

“Rest in peace.”

They gave a short, silent toast, then finished their drinks. 

“So, how fucked are we?”

“There’s four of us remaining. Pink seems to have escaped the flames long enough to scitter into the vents, plus there’s the head crawling somewhere also.”

“I think Pink did get hit by the flames, she’s probably singed at least a little, but not enough to outright kill her. Hopefully she’ll be easier to take down if we meet her again.”

“Electrical is fucked, as is the Greenhouse.”

“All that fire in the Medbay, do you think we cut off a few of our remaining hours to repair the oxygenation system.”

“Probably. I don’t know how long we lost though, but I can still see smoke coming from Medbay.”

“We never even had time to set up our damn floodlights.”

“By the way, I know where the artefact is.”

The three other crewmates looked at Red.

“We never picked up its signature, because it was inside Pink. Our meters only picked up the radiation signature when she opened up, because her body was shielding it from detection.”

“Oh shit, that makes sense. You think it’s the reason why she turned into… that?”

“I don’t see what else would have done it.”

“We’ll have to send Corporate a new message.”

Red nodded.

Orange finally broke the silence. “What about the ventilation robots? Their communication was linked to the captain. Can we still contact them?”

“I don’t see why not.” Purple took out her communicator and tried to contact them.

“Won’t the blackout stop you from reaching the robots?”

“They have a wireless relay, I should be able to redirect their notifications to our comms.”

Blue inquirred, “wait, with the captain dead, who’s the highest ranking officer right now?”

The crewmates glanced at each other. Purple answered her question, “after the captain, the two highest ranking officers are the Humanities Officer and the Science Officer.”

Orange and Red looked at each other. Red raised his hand in front of him, as if to stop any designation from reaching him. “I don’t think I have what it takes to be in a leading role, I’ll let Orange take charge if she wants.”

“I accept,” she responded.

“I’m not sure I do,” retorted Purple.

“I don’t think we even need a leader right now,” added Blue. “The priority should be to fix the electricity. This darkness is fucking with my mind.”

The rest agreed and they grabbed their lamp before making their way carefully towards the Electrical Room. They passed by Storage, where they made a stop to grab some floodlights. They first set up three lamps in the Storage Room itself, pointed in the direction of the three hallways out of it. They grabbed two more for Electrical and made their way there. 

Purple stood in a corner of the room, her flamethrower pointed at the vent, Orange stood in an opposite corner watching the door and the crewmates, while Blue and Red took place in front of the main electrical panel.

“How bad is it?” asked Purple, keeping her gaze on the vent.

“Not as bad as I thought. Yellow has a stash of tools in a utility closet here, I think everything I need will be in there.” 

Within five minutes, the room was filled with the oxygen alarm once again. Lights came back up. Orange let out a sigh of relief.

Before leaving the room, Blue and Red used a soldering iron to melt the grate’s handle into the floor, essentially locking it. “They might be able to force it open, but it won’t be easy and might give us time to come burn the bastards. Purple, any news on the robots?”

“Negative, but they’re still looking.”

“Where next?”

“Communications.”

The group moved out of Electrical, leaving two floodlights there. Passing by Storage, Blue picked up a new flashlight, then they picked up two additional floodlights. They passed by the burnt corpse of Yellow, then entered Communications where Purple took place in the big chair, keeping the flamethrower’s nozzle on her knees. 

“Message for A.U.S. H.Q., November 8th 2135.

“The crew of the A.U.S. Darwin has suffered great losses. Half of our crew has succumbed to an unknown condition we strongly believe has been caused by Foreign Object Theta-14, an artefact that we picked up on November 6th on planet Theta-3. The artefact is currently in the hands of a crewmate that has been…”

Purple moved away from the microphone and turned to the others. “How do I describe what happened to Pink?”

“Call it a mutated husk or something.”

“Oh, not a bad description.” She came back to the microphone. “The artefact is currently in the hands of a mutated husk of what used to be one of our crewmates, Medical Officer K. Pink. We also report the death of Captain K. White and Navigation Officer Y.N. Green, on top of the demise of our Engineer, T. Yellow, who died yesterday. We request again information on the artefact that could help the remaining crew members survive, as we believe it is causing the horrible mutations we have seen. The cadaver of Engineer Yellow has been reanimated and managed to murder Navigation Officer Green. His severed head-”

A notification echoed in the four communicators. A robot had spotted something.

“Storage? They’re right by us!”

“Let’s get ‘em.”

Purple put the message on hold and stood up, accompanying the three crewmates as they approached the door leading into Storage. The sensor detected Red, who stood in front of the pack with the fire axe, but the door stayed closed.

“They hacked the door.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Blue, can you fix that?”

“Of course I can. What do you think I am? A Humanities Officer?”

“Fuck you,” muttered Orange.

Blue opened the control panel of the door and started hacking to regain control of the door. Purple had her flamethrower ready and Red had his axe. Orange tried communicating with the vent robots. “Brain, show me what the robot in Storage is seeing.”

Her tiny screen showed her the camera feed of a little robot standing still under the floor of the Storage Room. It kept at a safe distance from the blackened legs of Pink, which disappeared up out of the grate. Her upper body was in the Storage Room, probably looking at the door they were trying to open. Then, the robot heard some button presses. She was doing something on a mechanical panel, but with the point of view of the robot it was impossible to know exactly what.

“Got it!” triumphantly yelled Blue. 

Right as the door opened, Orange saw Pink slink back into the vent through the camera. But she also saw that Pink had spotted the robot.

“Oh no! Run away little robot! Run!”

Purple and Red ran into the room, followed closely by Blue. Orange slowly walked behind them, focused on the small screen in her hand. She could see the perception of the robot rolling backwards through the ventilation shafts as a humanoid corpse crawled towards it. In the darkness of the ventilation system, the robot’s camera only saw snippets of its pursuer, but a sudden flash of fire in the background illuminated it for a moment. Purple was shooting flames into the vent, but the target was too far to be eliminated now. 

Orange watched the creature with a sort of terrified awe. The skin on its left side had been charred by the flamethrower and black fuming ooze dripped from the large hole on the shoulder where an arm should be. Its lips rolled up and down, showing off the creature’s gums and teeth, gnawing in the robot’s direction and launching bone-chilling howls. The many protruding bones scrapped against the metallic walls of the vents, causing high-pitched whines as it hurriedly crawled to catch the robot. 

Orange was panicking and shaking while watching the video feed and she ran out of Storage, trying to follow the robot through the ship in order to locate an exit for it. Blue and Purple followed her while Red lingered in the Storage Room for a few seconds, checking something on one of the control panels, before running after them.

Orange finally reached a vertical grate in the Cafeteria and kicked it open just in time for the robot to roll out. She jumped back, expecting Pink to try grasping it outside the vent, but she never saw her coming out. Purple walked in not too long after, shooting flames into the vent in case the monstrosity had lingered close by.

When Red entered the Cafeteria, he saw Orange holding the robot in her arm. “There there darling, you’re safe now.”

“Hey,” Red called out, to grasp their attention. “The outdoor Airlock door was opened a few seconds ago.”

“What?”

“Pink was in Storage to access the Airlock. I was pretty sure we had closed the outer Airlock door, but I checked the control panel just to be sure. The inner door was opened, then closed, then the outer door was opened.”

“So, she must have sent something outside?”

The crew stood to ponder in the well-lit Cafeteria for a moment, the only noise being the still-going oxygen alarm. They quickly walked back to the Communication Room, where Purple finished her message. While she did, Blue looked at Orange, noticing that she was still holding in her arms the ventilation robot.

“Alright Brain, pick the message back where I had left it. *Ahem*. The severed head of Yellow appears to have a mind of its own and is moving throughout the ship’s ventilation system, running from room to room sabotaging the ship’s system. I have the remaining crewmates on record to substantiate my claims.”

“You do?”

“Well if you all talk on the microphone and corroborate my story, I will.”

“Oh, right.”

Red, Blue and Orange took turns adding their voices to the message.

“We will soon reach the mining station of the asteroid CSC7, where we demand a military crew greets us. There might be imposters among us, surviving crewmates that bear the infection of the artefact, but we can’t know for sure… Communications Officer B.B. Purple, out.”

She then instructed the Brain to send the message.

“Error, communication array defective.”

Purple gazed at the screen. “Excuse me? Hum. Brain, where is the malfunction located?”

“The communication array.”

“No, I heard you the first time, that must be an error, the communication array is- oh my fuck.”

“What?” asked Orange, pressing the robot tighter against herself.

“The communication array is located on the outside of the ship.”

“Oh shit,” realized Red. “She must have opened the outer Airlock door to send Yellow’s head outside.”

“Without a functioning array, we can’t contact H.Q., so the staff at CSC7 won’t be ready for us.”

“What is there to be ready about?”

“We have to take into consideration the worst case scenario, whereas everybody gets assimilated or killed and one of those things reaches the asteroid station. Or, even worse, it reaches the homeworld.”

Red held his finger against his temples as if he was suffering from a migraine. “I know it’s going to sound bad, but… We might consider not returning home.”

“Excuse me?”

“Trashing the ship, sending it into the star. If we can’t contain the monster, we can’t in good conscience bring our ship back to civilization.”

“Let’s wait a little before we kamikaze the ship. We might still be able to eliminate the fuckers.”

“I say we discuss that in the Greenhouse, the alarm is really getting on my nerves and with all the fire you’ve thrown, I can’t say how long we have before death.”

The four crewmates then walked out of Communications, passing by Storage to pick a few floodlights, leaving one on in the Cafeteria, one on in Weapons and one on in the Greenhouse.

As they traversed the ship, Blue, holding the floodlight destined for Greenhouse, glared at Orange, who was still holding the ventilation robot.

“You know, if you dropped that little shit you could pick up a light too and help us make the ship more secure.”

“This is my emotional support maintenance robot. I protect him and he protects me. Plus I lost a hand so I’m allowed to not carry practical stuff.”

“Why the hell are you so attached to that junk?”

“Because he is loyal to the ship and the crew. One of you might be infected like Pink and try to eat me, but Danger will never hurt me.”

“Danger?”

“Yes, look.”

She awkwardly held up the robot with her one hand and stump to show the back of it to Blue. On its back was the main electrical panel and on the panel was a warning notice which read:

**DANGER**

_**Electrical hazard, wear protective equipment while repairing the innards of this machine.** _

“See, Danger.”

“... Okay. You should let Danger do its job though.”

“NO! He might get hurt! I don’t want him to get hurt…”

They reached the Greenhouse, but before Red could sit down, Purple put her hand on his shoulder.

“Wait, maybe we should take care of White’s body.”

Red agreed, despite the headache that the continuing alarm was inducing. They travelled back to the Medbay, where White’s corpse was fortunately still lying down where he had fallen dead. 

“What do we do with the corpse?”

“We could send it in space. Pink won’t have access to the body if it’s flying away in the void.”

“But isn’t the head outside the ship?”

“He’s probably crawling on the ship itself. If we throw the body out, the head won’t have time to catch it and White’s corpse will be lost to space.”

“Isn’t there a way we can keep the body on the ship? I mean, he was our captain, our friend, a member of the crew, he deserves a proper funeral back home.”

“So did Green. You wanna jump out and go catch her corpse?”

They looked down at the body. The lower body was mostly charred from the flamethrower, but part of the head and shoulders looked almost frosted because of the extinguisher. Pink’s arm was still sticking out of his belly, burned like most of the body. With the crewmates disagreeing on what to do with the body, they ended up putting it in a body bag, putting the bag on a rolling operating table and bringing it along with them. Once in the Greenhouse, Red finally sat down and looked into the system to fix the ventilation malfunction. The other crewmates stood guard at the door, wondering whether Pink would come crawling close by.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief as the alarm stopped. However, the relief was short-lived, as they all knew what the next task was.

All four crewmates, plus White’s corpse and Danger, moved back into the Storage Room. They stood in silence, enjoying the lack of alarm for a few seconds.

“So. Who’s going out to repair the array?” asked Blue.

“The array might have been ripped out and thrown away by the head. The most prudent strategy here would be to grab one of the surplus arrays we have and replace the one outside with a new one.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

Purple sighed. “I know…. I know.”

“How many people should go out? How many are staying in?”

“The worst idea would be to split two and two. Especially if there is a remaining imposter and they are within the team that stays in the ship.”

“One person then would go outside and fix the array while the other three stay inside.”

“We could draw straws,” proposed Red. “Excluding Orange, of course. I assume the repairs would need two hands.”

Blue and Purple agreed. Purple searched within the room until she found a box with extra wires. She grabbed three yellow wires and made sure one was smaller than the other two. Then she held her hand in front of Blue and Red, all three wires coming out of her fist with seemingly equal length. 

Blue nervously held up her hand, muttering a nursery rhyme while moving her hand from one wire to another, until she eventually picked up the middle wire. Since it was the only one on display, she wasn’t sure if it was the short straw. Red grabbed the one closer to his side and it was half the length of Blue’s wire. Purple opened her fist to reveal the third wire to be as long as Blue’s. 

Red closed his hand on the short wire which had designated him as the array repairman.

* * *

Red was suited up, holding the surplus array in one hand and a fire axe in the other. If he was going to fight a disembodied mutated head, he at least wanted some kind of weapon. He stepped into the Airlock and attached a safety cable to his suit, then held a thumbs up for his crewmates. He pressed a button, opening the outer Airlock door. The crewmates watched anxiously as Red slowly walked out of the ship and moved upwards, scaling the outside walls.

“Red here. Purple, Blue, Orange, you all hear me well?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re on.”

“I hear you just fine.

“Alright. I’ll let you know when I’ll get to the array or if I see Yellow.”

“Be careful Red.”

“I’ll be fine. You be careful too.”

* * *

“Hey captain.”

“Wh- What the… Yellow?”

“Yeah.”

“But you are…”

“Yeah.”

“This could only mean…”

“Yeah.”

“Damnit.”

“Yeah.”

“Hi captain.”

“Green. I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

“So, then, are we ghosts?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. I bet Hoppenheimer is rolling in his grave right now.”

“Yes, Hoppenheimer, the meta-physician, I know him,” declared Ghost Yellow. “I said the exact same thing when I died too.”

Ghost Green glared at him.

“Have you two been here since you died, or did you appear as ghosts later?”

“Upon death I guess.”

“Yeah, like he said.”

“Odd. I would assume Pink would be here with us.”

“Why? She’s still in the ship.”

“But she’s not really, is she? That thing, whatever it is, is not Pink. It has taken control of her body but I doubt the mind is still hers.”

“Then maybe the, huh, virus or whatever’s fucking up with the crew’s minds, is blocking her soul inside of her body.”

“Well, this isn’t great. The soul of one of our crewmates is trapped within an aberration puppeteering her dead body. I hope her soul will be liberated once they destroy her.”

“The soul of two of our crewmates, technically.”

“What do you mean, two?”

“Well, Pink’s, but also [REDACTED]’s.”

“[REDACTED] too?”

“Yeah, [REDACTED] got murdered by Pink during the night.”

“Oh shit. We have to warn the others.”

“I know. We tried. It doesn’t work.”

* * *


	10. Arming Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Red outside the ship, Blue, Orange and Purple are threading carefully, watching out for Pink and for each other.

**X**

Blue, Orange and Purple kept in contact with Red as he slowly climbed the ship. Whenever he talked, they could hear his breathing loudly echoed in the suit. Orange, still holding on to Danger, stared in the Communications hallway, looking at the burnt pieces of what used to be the engineer. She walked through the hallway, examining the body parts.

“Orange, don’t wander off, we need to stay together,” called out Blue.

“We have to find the monster. We have to burn it.” She turned back towards Blue and Purple. “If one of us is an imposter, we might be outnumbered soon. We really need to eliminate it. We need to bait it somewhere.”

“How? What exactly do we have as bait?”

“I don’t know. One of us? The other robot? I’m not even sure what that thing wants. We should also get some weapons.”

“You know, I’m good with only me having a flamethrower,” responded Purple.

“I’m not.”

“That’s not surprising. But think about it for a second; I haven’t burnt you two to ashes, which I probably would have done if I was one of the imposters, right?”

“Maybe you need our body to stay unburnt so you can assimilate us.”

Blue’s eyebrows lifted up and she nodded. “Damn that’s a great theory. Plus, she did burn White.”

Purple pointed the nozzle at Blue. “Come on, there was nothing we could have done to save him. Did you look how far that monstrous arm had reached inside him? The most humane thing to do was to end his suffering. Here, let me show you.” She walked to the rolling operating table, still pointing her weapon at Blue, then opened the body bag to show off the middle section. “You think we could have saved him at that point?”

Blue sighed. “I don’t know, maybe we could have done something.”

“Have you forgotten that our medical officer is out of commision? I don’t know how to pull out a mutated arm from a belly and stitch up some guts, do you?”

No answer. Blue looked at the dead body with a sour expression, then looked back towards Communications. “Uh-Oh.”

“What?” Purple turned her head and also noticed the compromising lack of Orange. She stepped back from Blue, her weapon pointed towards her.

Blue moved behind the operating table, ready to crouch in case Purple opened fire. Neither trusted each other and now there was no third party. Blue, maintaining eye contact with Purple, called Orange on her communicator. “Hey, where are you.”

“I ran away, I don’t trust either of you.”

“That’s a bad idea, Pink might get you.”

“It doesn’t have a flamethrower, so I’ll take my chances.”

Purple joined the call. “Are you seriously condemning me?”

“I’m not condemning anyone, but either of you could be the imposter. Or Red.”

Purple added Red to the call. “Hey Red, Orange just ran away from us.”

“What? When? How?”

“I’m okay, Red, I’m also on the call. I don’t know who to trust so I didn’t want to stay with them.”

“Orange, you shouldn’t split from the group?”

“Aren’t YOU split from the group right now?”

“Yes but I’m outside the ship, so in a- Oh shit! The head!”

Purple and Blue both looked up, as if they could see or hear the kerfuffle through the ship’s hull. But the radio signal went silent as Red probably focused on trying to axe the head.

“Well, at least we have a confirmation that the head is crawling over the ship.”

“That is, if we can trust Red,” added Orange.

The alarm system went on. “Reactor Malfunction,” called out the Brain’s P.A. system.

“Ah shit. Blue, let’s go.”

Purple and Blue ran towards the reactor, quickly reaching the Reactor Room, spotting ashen footprints around the vent. Purple quickly sent a notification to the second vent robot to patrol around the Reactor and Engines rooms. 

Blue typed up on the Reactor terminal, trying to find the malfunction. “It’s not the room’s electrical panel like last time. She did something to the reactor itself.”

“Can we fix it?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

* * *

Orange came out of the Medbay, followed closely by Danger. She glanced around the Storage Room, seeing that the room was clear. She turned to the robot and whispered, “Blue and Purple must be at the reactor. Keep watch for me, will you?”

Danger whirred quietly in response.

Orange reached the operating table where White’s corpse still lay dead. She took out the scalpel she had picked up in Medbay and held the head as best she could with her stump. She stabbed on the side of the retinal orbit. It was hard with only one hand, but she did manage to fuck up one of the captain’s eyes. “Fuck! Damnit.” She went to work on the other eye and with some luck, managed to cut it out and pull it out. “This one should work, right?”

Danger’s camera nodded.

She placed the eye in a pocket and then walked through the Comms hallway. One of Yellow’s arms had been thrown all the way into the Shields Room and she picked it up. She then kept walking until she reached Weapons. The reactor alarm was still going on. She gave Danger the burnt arm and placed the robot under a handprint scanner, then grabbed the standing floodlight and brought it against the retinal scanner. She used the floodlight to prop up the captain’s eye in front of the scanner and then walked up to the other handprint scanner, holding her remaining hand against it. 

“Push the hand on the scanner!”

Danger managed to hold the arm up, palm against the scanner. Orange hoped the hand wasn’t too burnt.

The little light on the weapons’ locker flashed green and Orange smiled.

* * *

“Almost got it!” Blue was finished up on the terminal. “Okay, one last thing, you need to press your hand on the scanner on the right, I’ll take on the one left.

Purple and Blue each took their place and pressed on the scanners and then the alarm subsided. 

“All right, what now?”

“Let’s check up on the others.” Blue picked up her comm. “Red, are you still alive?”

“I managed to drive off the head, I don’t know where it is and I’m terrified.”

“Red’s alright. Orange? Are you still alive?”

“Never been better.”

“Where are you right now? Can we join back with you? You’ll be safer with us.”

“No, I’m good. I’m real good.”

There was a glee in her voice that made Blue and Purple uncomfortable.

“Maybe we should go check up on White’s corpse,” proposed Purple.

They walked back to the Storage Room, where they noticed the opened body bag. Blue rushed in and saw White’s eyeless face. “Oh shit!”

Purple saw it as well. “What the fuck.”

“I say we dump the body. Let’s not take any chances.”

Purple agreed. They pushed the table into the Airlock then quickly walked out. The loss of one rolling table was deemed acceptable and they jettisoned it out with the body bag.

“What the fuck happened to his eyes?”

“One was missing…” Purple turned around just in time to see Orange standing in the Administration hallway. She had some sort of contraption in her hand, pointed at them. Her stumped wrist was placed under it to keep it steady. A burnt arm was tied up on her belt and the little robot rolled up behind her.

“Hey, Orange.”

“Hey, Purple.”

“What are you holding up?”

“I don’t know exactly what this does, but it’s classified as a mining contraption. If it can cut through rock, it can surely cut through the imposter.”

“It’s a plasma cutter,” explained Blue. “Please don’t point that thing at us.”

“I feel safer with a weapon in hand. Isn’t that right, Purple?”

Purple’s knuckles were turning pale as she grasped hard on the flamethrower’s nozzle. Blue held her hands up, glancing between Purple and Orange. She wasn’t intent on getting burnt alive, but getting cut by high-intensity plasma blades didn’t sound like a treat either.

“What’s your plan now? You’re just going to hold us up with your weapon until something happens?”

“I’m going to defend myself until we reach CSC7, where we’ll find out who’s really an imposter.”

Blue interjected, “that’s a nice plan and all, but Pink is still roaming around and sabotaging stuff. We really need to find her and kill her.”

Orange pondered for a moment, then slowly lowered her weapon. She kept it well in hand, ready to pull up and shoot if need be. “Okay. Let’s kill that abomination.”

They moved to the Cafeteria, where they could keep a nice distance to each other, as well as check the exits and the vent. Orange talked first, her communicator on speaker on a nearby table. “How can we kill those monsters? Red, you’re the resident sci-fi expert, how do we kill it?” 

“I’m not sure, there are multiple types of shapeshifters slash body snatchers creatures in science fiction history. Our imposter might be some completely new creature. However, so far the closest thing to what I’ve seen would be the Thing from Another World, or the necromorphs.”

“Necromorphs?”

“The alien monsters in the old Dead Space franchise. They infect corpses and turn them into other necromorphs, the name is a wordplay on-

“I don’t care what the name means, how do we kill them?”

“In the game you have to cut off their limbs, but clearly loss of limbs hasn’t affected the monsters we’ve seen so far. But fire does harm them though. It’s also one of the only ways to eliminate the things in the Thing.”

“Is there any way we could detect the imposter?”

“Well, there are many strategies they used in the movies, but I can’t guarantee it’ll work in our situation.”

“What strategies?”

“In one movie they burnt the blood, expecting it to react on its own like an independent organism.”

Orange looked down at her shirt, which still had some of Yellow’s blood on it. “Fuck, should I change shirt?”

“Yes,” responded Purple, “but the blood doesn’t seem to have moved around on its own. Either it’s in league with you and you’re an imposter, or the blood isn’t sentient. Red, what else?”

“In another movie they checked for teeth fillings. Back in the 20th and 21th century they sometimes used silver or gold fillings for tooth cavities. The thing could only recreate the organic structures of the people it killed, so stuff like pacemakers, artificial hips and tooth fillings were discarded.”

“This strategy wouldn’t work though, none of us has internal prosthetics and tooth filling are remarkably tooth-looking,” declared Purple.

“I know, these strategies don’t apply to us.”

“What about the remake, you mentioned one that came out not too long ago?”

“Yeah, in 2122. They literally just re-used the blood test idea. There was nothing original or ground-breaking about the movie, the special effects sucked and-”

“Okay that’s enough, I don’t need a full review of the movie.”

“Oh, alright.”

“Speaking of blood tests, you haven’t explained why your blood was in Yellow’s shower.” Orange glared at Purple.

“The monster must have messed up with the test. while on the computer I guarantee you if we get back there and sample the blood, it won’t be mine.”

“Well, it’s convenient for you that the Medical Officer was actually an imposter, isn’t it? Now you have an excuse to discredit the test.”

“Oh, is that what you’re thinking? Let’s go to the Medbay. Blue, you come as well.”

They got up and visited the Medbay, where Purple checked up the computer’s test history, Orange and Blue behind her looking at the screen attentively. 

“You’ll see, once we get to the test analysis… What?”

“No tampering. That was your blood.”

“But I was never in that room, it couldn’t have been my blood! Wait, doesn’t the Medbay have a blood reserve?”

Purple got up and searched around, until finally she found the freezer. “It’s locked. And who in the crew would have the key?”

Blue and Orange nodded, silently agreeing with Purple’s untold theory.

“Orange, open this up please.”

“What? But I don’t have the key!”

“No- hum, I meant, open it with your plasma cutter.”

“Oh, yeah I guess I can fuck up the lock.”

She aimed the cutter towards the freezer’s handle at a sideways angle. She hadn’t fired the tool yet and didn’t know how efficient it would be or how dangerous it truly was, she didn’t want to shoot straight through the freezer and risk damaging the stuff inside. When she pulled the trigger, a blade of blue energy burned the air in a straight line, until it reached the freezer’s locked handle. The cutter was surprisingly powerful, much more than any of the three would have anticipated, cutting through the door and part of the wall besides it.

“Wow, that felt amazing! Wasn’t it amazing?”

“Yeah, I guess it kinda is.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Blue. I was talking to Danger.”

The little robot whirred and rolled up next to her. With no more handle, it took a few seconds for the crewmates to manage to open the freezer, using surgical tools as mini-crowbar to push it open.

On the inside, there were seven blood bags. Purple’s was missing. “Ah-ha! I knew it!”

“Okay, so there’s a possibility that you could be innocent.”

“Why doesn’t that missing blood bag completely exonerate me?”

“Because if you’re working with the thing, it could have strategically taken out your blood bag to make you appear more sympathetic to our eyes.”

Purple scoffed.

Blue, standing behind them, spoke up, “But it’s still better than if the blood bag was still there. Then the only way she could have had access to your blood would be if she had access to your body. I agree with Orange that this doesn’t fully exonerate you, but it’s easier to believe that you are clean now.”

“Thank you I guess.”

* * *

Darkness. Quiet. The creature crawled carefully under the floor of the ship, listening closely for any human noises. She moved gracefully to avoid touching the walls of the ventilation shaft with her protruding bones, to avoid making noises and alerting the crew or the maintenance robot. She opened the grate and crawled out into the Greenhouse, where she considered for a second hacking the oxygen filters, but then decided against it. She had overheard the remaining crewmates conversing in the Storage Room about weapons and thus decided to check if the weapons locker might have been left unlocked. To her dismay, it hadn’t. The little light was red. She moved low and close to the walls, ready to run away if she spotted someone holding a weapon. The best would be to come face to face with a lonely unarmed crewmate, but the group didn’t seem eager to split. She moved into the cafeteria, ears and eyes scanning the surrounding for any movement. 

She felt uneasy moving out in the open, where people could see her and attack. Hiding in the vents and sneakily picking them off one by one seemed a better solution, but the maintenance robots could spot her even in there and alert them of her position. She had to eliminate the damn things. She made her way into the Administration Room, where she looked at the map of the ship. Heartbeat sensors indicated a presence in Admin and three presences in Medbay. One crewmate was missing from the group, which was fantastic news. She jumped into the vents and started crawling around, looking through the grates in search of the lone wanderer.

Room after room left her disappointed. Mulling over the circumstances, she was in the Lower Engines Room when she had the idea that maybe one crewmate had been sent out to deal with the head. Whatever it was doing, it must have done some damage on the outside of the ship. This thought brought the creature comfort. She then decided to shift her focus on the maintenance robots. 

The creature crawled out of the vent into the Storage Room. She was looking for something small enough to fit inside the ventilation shafts, but large enough to block the way. She picked a box of batteries that was hidden behind a bunch of crates, not expecting anyone to notice it was gone. She moved carefully into the corridor until she reached Navigation, where she entered the vents.

* * *

“What the fuck is that?”

“That's my head! And it's going to win!”

“Dude, what the hell! Your head is clearly just an infected monster at this point. Remember, we don't want the monsters to win.”

“But it’s my head! I’m allowed to root for myself!” lamented Ghost Yellow.

“Well,” chimed in Ghost White, “if it was my head crawling around I might root for it too.”

"Thank you! See? The Captain is on my side!"

“Ranks don't matter now that we're dead, dumbasses. Also, doesn’t it need oxygen?” asked Ghost Green.

“It’s already moving around without lungs. I doubt oxygen is very high on its list of priorities.”

“Damn, those things are scary! I’m almost glad I’m dead so I don’t have to face these things in the ship. They must be so terrified!”

“I’ll give you that, I am a lot less stressed out now that I’m dead.”

Ghost Yellow moved away from them, following the head as it descended down the side of the ship. Ghost White and Ghost Green kept close to Red, monitoring his movements. Ghost Green tried to point the array to him, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. Ghost White looked up into the void and decided to drift off, to see how far he could go. He didn’t manage to make it very far before being stopped by an invisible wall.

“Green?” he said, in a regular voice. Despite the distance between them, she heard him well, as if they were standing face to face. 

“Yeah, what is it?”

“I can’t seem to move out of a certain range from the ship. Do you think our souls could be linked to it?”

“Either that or to the artefact. It’s certainly not linked to our bodies because both of our corpses have been fucking off away into the emptiness of space and we’re both still trapped here.”

* * *

“The hydrogen canister exploded while inside the Yellow body and coupled with the relatively large hallway, the damage wasn’t as intense as it could have been. If you were to blow one up in a ventilation shaft, I can only guess that you would do irremediable damages to the ship.”

Blue was not at all on board with Purple’s suggestion of blowing up the imposter in a vent like they had done previously. Upon hearing her rebuttal, Orange sided with her against Purple’s new plan. “No explosions, nuh-uh.”

“What should we do then? Are you proposing we wait for it to come out and kill us from behind?”

“No, we definitely need to destroy her, but I’m saying we need to find a solution that’s not going to blow a hole in the side of the ship.”

“Yeah! Like she says!”

Blue explained her idea, “explosive canisters are a no-go, instead I would propose we use some kind of flammable material to create a trap. The flamethrowers backpacks are filled with gas, but I think a flammable liquid could work better.”

“Well, it’s not like we got red jerry cans of gasoline on this ship.”

“No,” she responded with a smug smile, “but we do have booze.”

“Booze is flammable,” explained Orange. Purple and Blue, who both already knew very well that alcohol was flammable, looked at her only to realize she was explaining it to Danger, which she was holding and gently petting.

A notification popped up. Blue looked at her communicator and saw that the robot had spotted Pink close to Storage and was retreating hastily towards Navigation. The video feed showed the creature crawling towards the robot, but it was specially made to move quickly through the ventilation shaft and was outrunning her even while rolling backwards. The trio of survivors made their ways forwards into the ship, weapons in hands and ready to strike if the monster came out of the vents.

“Holy shit it stopped moving!” Blue’s tone was apprehensive.

“The creature stopped moving?”

“No, well, yeah, but the robot, it got stuck in something and now Pink is staring at it in the vents. Okay now she’s slowly crawling towards it. Run little robot! Run!”

Orange panicked upon hearing it. She wasn’t as close to the other robot as she was to Danger, but she considered them to be siblings and she didn’t want anything to happen to Danger’s sibling.

Once they reached the hallway in front of Navigation, they tried to locate the robot within the walls. Blue was watching powerlessly as the creature closed in and grabbed the robots, its little wheel rolling uselessly as its body was blocked by something it could not see.

“Where are they? WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY?” Orange was holding up her cutter against the wall, hearing the robot’s useless wheels turning through Blue’s active video feed.

“I’m not sure! I think it’s close to the corner! Pink is blocking the view! Oh fuck what the fuck what the fuck.”

The monster’s mouth opened wide, much wider than any human being could realistically do. Blue, horrified, gave her communicator to Purple. “I can’t look, I’m sorry.”

Purple looked at the gruesome, trying to pinpoint where exactly in the vents Pink was. She entered the Navigation Room and shot flames into the grate, looking at the phone whether she could see the lights of her flames in the video.

“I can see a bit of light when I fire it up! Orange, get on the vent in Shields!”

But Orange didn’t. She had her own communicator on and looked at the video, then, pinpointing as best she could, she shot at the wall.

Blue, panicked, asked “what the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m trying to shoot the bitch down before it murders Danger’s sibling!”

“You’re going to cut through the shaft! The plasma cutter is made to cut through meters of rocks, you can’t use it here you’re going to doom us all!”

“We used it in the Medbay and you didn’t say shit!” Orange shot a few more times through the walls, where she thought the ventilation was.

“The Medbay is in the middle of the ship, right now we’re really fucking close to the ship’s hull! Stop or you might cut through all the way to the exterior! Do you want us to suffocate?”

“I want to kill that fucker, whatever the fucking cost!”

Orange shot again and again, until finally the plasma cutter’s energy cell was emptied. As she started shooting blanks, Blue grabbed the gun and punched her in the shoulder. When she didn’t let go of the weapon, she kicked her on the side of her knee and hit her elbow from below, causing Orange to let go of the plasma cutter and stagger sideways. 

“What the fuck!” she screamed as managed to not fall on the ground.

Purple, who had seen the video feed turn to static when the robot was crushed by a disgusting corridor of flesh and bones, stepped out of Navigation only to witness Blue walking away from Orange with the weapon.

“Wait, what the fuck happened here?”

“She ran out of ammo.”

“BLUE JUST TRIED TO MURDER ME, SHE’S THE IMPOSTER.”

“I felt uncomfortable with her having a weapon,” explained Blue, “but I didn’t want to try anything while she still had the capacity to cut me in half.”

She unloaded the empty energy cell, letting it fall on the ground, then placed the inert plasma cutter on her belt.

Purple’s eyes glanced from Blue to Orange to Blue, then she asked, “could you give the cutter to me.”

Blue looked back at her, then met her question with a swift “No.”

“So, you want to keep this dangerous weapon on yourself?”

“Relax, I have no ammunition for it. Anyway, you already have the flamethrower, so in case you’re infected I still think the rest of us should have some leverage over you. Just maybe not in the hands of a lunatic like Orange.”

“Fuck you, I’m not a lunatic.”

“Really? Then what’s this?” Blue held up a palm next to her ear and closed her mouth.

Purple and Orange waited for something, but she said nothing else.

“What’s what.”

“Oh forget it, I’ll do a demonstration.”

She walked into Navigation, carefully watching the vents. Purple watched her closely, while also keeping an eye on Orange. Blue came out holding a little paper notebook and moved next to Orange. She pulled out one page and threw it into the air. The others watched as the little piece of paper slowly flew down, then moved towards the wall and then stuck against it, quietly wavering over a large burnt line on the wall.

“What… Why is it doing this?”

“Air current. Air is being pulled through the slit cut into the wall by you and the paper is pulled with it. Right now, I have to assume the plasma went all the way through, has cut slits through the hull of the ship and air is now leaking out.”

“But,” retorted Purple, “is it possible this air current is just the regular air circulation going through the ventilation system?”

Blue pondered for a moment. “Could be… but air current seems a bit strong to be just the ship’s ventilation.”

“I just shot flame in there, doesn’t heat influence air pressure and shit?”

“That’s a possibility.”

“Oh fuck,” lamented Orange, “I didn’t want to pierce the ship, I just wanted to protect Danger’s family!”

“Relax, Orange, everything’s going to be okay.” Purple grabbed her communicator, then realized it wasn’t hers. She gave Blue’s back, then fished out her own in her pockets. “Red, can you hear me?”

“Five outta five. I think I just found where that stupid array is.”

“Forget the array. Move to the wall between Navigation and Shields, near the bottom part of the ship. We need you to check if there are holes in the hull.”

“Holes in the hull? Uh-oh.”

“Yeah, that’s your new priority. Do you have any tools on your suit that could take care of the holes if there are any?”

“Let me check… Yeah I got a little plastic glue gun here, should do the trick if the hole is small.”

“Tell us when you’re there.

Orange was sitting against a wall, cradling Danger and apologizing to it for not saving its sibling.

* * *


	11. The Brave Little Robot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danger is the last remaining maintenance robot. Will he make it until the end of the chapter?

**XI**

“Smoke is coming out of the ship.” Red’s voice had a tinge of bewilderment.

“So you did pierce the outer hull,” Blue told Orange.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Orange pressed Danger against her as she sat on the ground.

“Yeah, I see two little slits, smoke is coming out. Is there a fire on your side?”

“I used the flamethrower in the vents” clarified Purple. “But that was a few minutes ago. Is the smoke still coming out?”

“Yeah.”

“There must be something on fire in there then. Maybe I did get the monster? Orange, could you send your little robot in there to check what’s burning?”

Orange didn’t want to send out Danger, but she understood that the robot had a job to do. They entered the Navigation room and saw smoke coming out of the grate. Purple was ready with her flamethrower while Orange placed Danger in the ventilation shaft. She looked at the video feed to make sure there was no danger for Danger, but the smoke was hindering its vision.

“Doesn’t smell like burnt flesh,” noted Purple.

Danger rolled deeper into the vent through the smoke, until the burning object came into view. 

“Ok we’re coming in view of the thing… looks like a box?”

Orange and Blue were both looking at the video feed, when Blue gasped.

“Run!” yelled Blue, as she bolted out of the room. 

Purple was caught by surprise and turned just in time to see Blue’s legs as she exited the room. She stared at Orange, then ran out as well. Orange waited for Danger to roll back out and then ran out with it. Orange was in the Weapons Room when she heard the bang. A rush of air went past her and she just had time to hold on to the ramp as a vacuum was produced in the hallway behind her. She struggled to hold on with her one remaining hand, her scream muffled by the deafening wind. The alarm system blared, red lights coming on in every room as an automated message yelled out: “OXYGEN DEPLETING, OXYGEN DEPLETING, OXYGEN DEPLETING, OXYGEN…”

A loud hiss resonated as the door leading toward Navigation closed down. The ship was closing off doors and quarantining the sector that was leaking air. The alarm continued while the air in the Navigation sector was being sucked out. Orange got back up, dazed, her hand still clenched hard on the rail, her knuckles completely devoid of color. She looked around and then had the sudden horrific realization that Danger wasn’t with her.

* * *

Blue was in the Cafeteria when the explosion happened. As the hermetic doors closed and the wind stopped, she carefully made her way back towards Navigation. She met Purple in front of the Greenhouse and together they heard the cries of Orange. They walked into the Weapons Room, seeing the Humanities Officer whimpering over the loss of her friend. When she saw them, she got up and wiped her tears. Evidently, this was not the time to mourn.

“Get it together,” she whispered to herself.

The trio watched the sealed door for a second, then quickly moved to the Greenhouse to inquire on the damage. 

“Brain, how’s the oxygen situation?” asked Blue to the main console.

“Nineteen percent of the ship’s atmosphere has been lost, but the sector surrounding Navigation has been quarantined. Our remaining atmosphere is safe for the moment. Considering the lost crewmates, the remaining oxygen should be plentiful until we reach the asteroid outpost.”

“Well that last part was kinda grim,” noted Purple.

“Brain, won’t the air leak out through the vents?”

“The vents around Navigation have been hermetically sealed.”

“The… Wait, there are hermetic seals WITHIN the ventilation shafts?”

“Yes.”

“How come we didn’t know about that?”

“Because our engineer died before we knew the vents were a danger,” declared Orange. “It’s not like our jobs need us to know every technical system on the ship.”

“Can you control the vents from here?” asked Purple. “The greenhouse supervises the ventilation system, right?”

“Yeah I think so.”

She typed on the atmospheric console and within a minute she had opened a menu allowing control on the vents hermetic seals. There was a series of panels within the shafts that could be closed in case of a loss of air, but they learned that these panels could be closed at any moment. Blue activated every remaining panel, closing off the ventilation system into tiny little segments.

“What did you just do?”

“I closed every ventilation door that I could. Pink can still enter into the vents to hide, but she won’t be able to use them to traverse the ship.”

“Are we even sure she made it out before the explosion?”

“Let’s assume the worst and take the safer option.”

“Fair.” Purple walked back a few paces. “Red, how are you doing outside?... Red?”

Orange turned on her own headset. “Red? Red do you hear us?”

“I don’t think I hear you either Orange. I mean, I hear your actual voice, but not your voice in the call.”

“You think the comms were sabotaged?”

“Either that or Yellow’s head got Red.”

“Maybe he got blasted away by the explosion?”

The crewmates nervously looked at each other. What if Red had been blasted away?

“So, what do we do now?” asked Blue.

* * *

The creature slinked back in the vents in the Communication Room. It had heard the explosion a few minutes earlier and heard the deep whistling of air escaping the ship. The imposter couldn’t help but wonder if the crewmates had tried to throw a bomb her way, but eventually it dawned on it that the burning box of batteries might have been the cause of the explosion. As it crawled silently towards the back of the ship, a red light filled the shaft. An hermetic panel closed right on her heel, breaking the bone and snapping the muscle. Blood filled the shaft, yet it did not cry, it did not scream, for the creature didn’t experience pain. However, it was unhappy about the loss of a foot. It turned forward and crawled, all the while concentrating on manipulating the flesh within its lower leg to replace the now missing foot. It passed under the Storage Room and reached another hermetic panel blocking her route, forcing it to turn back and exit the shaft through the Storage vent.

It carefully looked left and right, then looked back inside the shaft at its bloody stump. It focused on the blood vessels, modifying its anatomy until the veins and artery were clogged. Hopping on one leg, it grabbed a nearby rag and used it to wipe the blood off, then tied a second rag on the stump and carefully crawled towards the back of the ship. It knew the trio would soon get into Communication and with Navigation likely quarantined, they would pass by the Cafeteria and then through Storage.

It entered into Electrical and for a moment considered sabotage. It reflected on the missing foot and the new status of the ventilation system. Maybe it was better to wait until a new foot had been formed. The creature had already shrunk a lot of guts and internal organs to send the flesh up to repair her arms, so it decided to use bones for the foot. Pink’s memories were filled with medical knowledge and the creature decided to model the new bone foot on the look of the simple metallic leg prosthesis. Walking would be a lot louder than with regular flesh feet, but at least it would have the option to walk and run.

Crawling into the vent, it explored a little and quickly noticed that it couldn’t access other rooms anymore using the vents. It then decided to wait in a corner against an hermetic panel. Already, an elegant flat bone pierced through the rag covering its stump. Within an hour, it would have a new working foot. The creature was patient, it could wait an hour. 

It didn’t have the opportunity to wait, however. A distant clicking sound caught its attention and it looked past the corner towards the grate. The grate was open and a bottle of vodka was thrown in, breaking and spilling its content within the shaft. Four more bottles of hard liquors were thrown in, their content spilling and covering the length of the metal shaft. The creature saw the dark mixture of gin, whiskey and vodka flow in her direction, reaching her stump. If it could feel fear, it would be terrified.

* * *

“So, what do we do now?” asked Blue.

“Killing the monster should be our top priority.” declared Orange. “It doesn’t matter whether we can contact the homeworld or Red, if this shit is crawling through the ship it’s going to kill us all.”

“It’s probably going to assume we’ll repair the comms first.”

“Exactly. We need to take the advantage. Be on top for once.”

“Booze time,” called out Purple.

They quickly made their way to the Cafeteria, picking up any hard liquor bottles that they had time to get. Then, they half-jogged towards Security, trying to be fast without being too loud. Once in, they opened the camera feeds and carefully looked for any signs of the creature.

“Nothing to report.” Blue looked at the screen inquisitively for a moment. “Pink knows where the cameras are, right? She’s probably going to try and avoid them.”

“It was close to Navigation, then allegedly messed up Communications.” Orange thought out loud. “It couldn’t have crawled much farther than Storage before the hermetic seals went down, so we’ll have to assume it came out close to that part of the ship.”

“If it avoided the camera, it wouldn't be going by Admin. Navigation’s quarantined. I’d reckon either Lower Engines or Electrical.”

Purple checked on her belt, making sure her Geiger counter was still on. She then threw it at Blue.

“Why are you giving me that?”

“When we reach those rooms, you’ll stick your arm in the vent with the counter to check if that thing is in there.”

“Why me? Why not you?”

“I’m holding the flamethrower.”

“Why not Orange?”

“She already lost one hand, it would be pretty shitty if she lost both.”

“True,” Orange added.

“So, you do admit there’s a risk I might get my hand chomped on.”

“Technically, there’s a risk we might all get eaten and turned into horrifying monstrosities, which is why I propose we get going now.”

The trio made their way down, Blue grumbling as she cautiously stuck her hand into the vent. No sound. They then moved towards Electrical, where Blue didn’t even have to move the counter past the grate to hear the clicking sound. She turned to the other with a wide grin. Quickly, they started pulling and turning the corks and stoppers and throwing the bottles into the vent. The smell of alcohol filled the room and they couldn’t imagine how intense the smell must’ve been inside the shaft. Purple pointed her weapon into the vent and triumphantly declared: “BITCH!”

But no flame turned out. She pulled the trigger a few times, looking increasingly terrified as the weapon jammed and failed. Blue and Orange showed an equal amount of dread in their eyes as they glared at Purple and the vent. They heard the sound of crawling and bone scraping against metal.

“Fuck,” whispered Orange, who then ran out of the room. Blue figured she didn’t want to be left alone in the room with Pink and Purple and a faulty flamethrower, so she ran out after Orange. As she arrived into the Storage Room, she and Orange looked at each other. They glared at each other with squinted eyes. Both looked around the room, clearly looking for some kind of weapon.

“Are you the other imposter,” asked Blue.

“No, are you?”

“No.”

Blue spotted the handle of a large wrench on a nearby crate. She saw that Orange had seen it as well. Blue had the plasma cutter. Orange had energy cells for the cutter. If they worked together they could make a weapon that could no doubt light up the alcohol-covered flesh of the creature. But neither showed signs of trust towards one another and neither wanted the other to have control of the weapon right now, even though neither said it out loud. Especially if Purple wasn’t there with her flamethrower to temper the wielder of the plasma cutter.

The staring contest was interrupted by the sound of the outer Airlock door. Orange looked into the window and saw a stark cloud of white decontamination steam. Then, the inner Airlock door opened, revealing Red, his suit covered in blood, holding an axe in one hand and Danger in the other. The little robot whirred enthusiastically upon seeing Orange.

“Fuck!” The voice of Purple echoed behind Blue and they looked at her as she ran into the Storage Room, unarmed. The creature was not far behind, holding the flamethrower backpack. Blue gathered from this sight that Pink probably tried to grab at Purple, who blocked her hand with the flamethrower and then had to take it off to be able to escape Electrical. Pink threw the flamethrower forward, hitting Purple in the back and sending her flying against Blue. 

Red dropped the robot and jumped in front of the two fallen crewmates, holding his axe up. He had seen the axe being used against the imposter before, yet he stood with it firmly in hand. In front of him, the walking and twisted remains of the Medical Officer glared in his direction. It walked crookedly, even more so with its malformed bone foot. Orange jumped beside Red, holding the heavy red wrench. She had to have it propped up with her stump for how heavy it was, but she held firmly.

The broken husk took one step forward, causing all crewmates to quiver. Before they could clash, however, Danger rolled between Blue and Purple, then between the legs of Orange and Red and charged the monster. “Wait, no, Danger!” Orange cried out.

Pink kicked forward, missing the robot by a centimeter with its left leg as Danger swerved to its left. Then all four crewmates watched in awe as the robot shot its welding tool towards Pink’s alcohol-soaked right leg. The creature caught on fire while the little robot circled her and rolled back towards the group, stopping beside Orange.

The flaming monster wailed and flailed as it tried to escape the room. Red jumped forward and strategically slashed at its leg. It fell down and tried to crawl, burning and howling, the horrible sounds filling the room and causing every crewmate to cringe. Purple and Blue were back up, they fetched the flamethrower and frantically checked the nozzle, trigger and backpack.

As soon as the flamethrower was operational again, Purple closed in to the burning, crawling monster and doused it in even more flames, stopping only when it stopped moving. Red, still wearing his suit, got close to the fire and hooked the corpse with the spike of the axe, then pulled it towards the Airlock.

* * *

A deep feeling of relief filled her soul as Ghost Pink watched the burning corpse exit the Airlock, the flames snuffing instantly in the vacuum of space.

She saw the ghosts of Yellow, Green and White, who were all looking at her angrily.

“You… But, holy macaroni. I can’t believe it. You three, you’re all still here!”

“Yeah, we’re ghosts. Thanks to you.”

“Oh, calm down captain, it wasn’t me. Well, it wasn’t technically me.”

“Yeah, I guess she’s got a point. When my body ejected Green outside, I wasn’t in control of it.”

“See, Yellow is on my side.”

“I am. And by now I assume you must be thinking that Hoppenheimer is literally rolling in his grave haha.

“I was just about to say that.”

Ghost White floated forward and asked, “how was it, being one of those creatures?”

“Horrible. I was trapped in my own corpse, but that corpse was a damned husk with no thought besides a perpetual hunger for power and flesh. Yet I could feel all the conniving it was doing. I was powerless to stop it from murdering my friends…”

Ghost Green approached her and tried to pose a hand on her shoulder. Ghost to ghost contact was a weird feeling, noted Ghost Pink. The hand passed through her shoulder but still she could feel it, as if it was half corporeal and half ethereal.

“You three have been watching over the ship since your respective demises, right?”

“Yeah, I saw you, well, your body, assimilate [REDACTED] in my shower.”

“We have to warn the rest then.”

“We’ve tried already, nothing works.”

“Fuck that. There has to be a way. I brought that shit on the ship, the least I could do is try to save the remaining members of the crew.”

Ghost Green floated next to her and shot her a look of approval. There had to be a way to assist the crewmates inside. Ghost Pink was determined above all else to right the wrongs the creature had brought on her behalf.

* * *


	12. A Week in the Shoes of an Imposter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm fleshing out Pink's character a little by showing a series of flashbacks before and after she became the imposter.

**XII**

_ October 31st, 2135, CSC7 Mining Station. One week before the incident. _

* * *

Pink knew they still had at least three hours before the ship’s departure, so she decided to take a walk around the station. She called out Orange and Purple, inviting them to get out of the ship. The three crewmates went to visit the narrow metallic corridors going through the mining facility. The station wasn’t particularly pretty, but it was a change of scenery after the two weeks of travel from the homeworld. Orange nudged her and pointed at a neon sign indicating the direction to the restaurant district. The food printers of the ship had a nice variety of foodstuff, but the range of taste offered was somewhat limited. They were curious to see what kind of cuisine the asteroid had.

“Look! They have a sushi shop!”

They were astonished by the sight of fish protein, as there were no lakes or rivers on the asteroid. They did know, however, that CSC7 was a frequent relay between the Home Star System and a bunch of other systems.

Orange, rubbing her hands, suggested, “I bet they’re from Terra, a shipment meant for the colony and they bribed the captain of the cargo ship to let them buy a crate of fish!” 

“No, you’re wrong,” rebutted Pink. “I bet, it’s supplies from one of the colonial worlds.”

“Both of you are assuming this is real fish, but it could very well be artificially-flavored lab-grown protein.”

The three officers decided to each buy a portion, trying to guess by taste where the fish was from. Pink was surprised by the price, for the meals were about five times as expensive as they would have been on Terra. (she had expected them to be twice that). As they sat at a nearby table, under an old discolored umbrella with some beer logo on it, they dug into the meals.

“So, Pink, you talked with Red about the planet, right?” asked Orange.

“Yeah, we’re going to visit the third planet from the star. There have been only two ships in the Theta system before us, the A.U.S. Magellan and the A.U.S. Ocasio-Cortez. The Magellan had a technical malfunction and didn’t make it back but the Ocasio-Cortez brought back a few interesting readings from Theta-3, Theta-4 and Theta-7.”

“Are we also visiting four and seven?”

“There are three robotic probes on the ship, A.U.S. directive is to drop one on each planet, but the scientific team is only going to scout on foot on Theta-3. We have to retrieve some foreign object that the first expedition flagged but didn’t have the time to pick up.”

“I skimmed the dispatch a little,” added Purple, “there are no habitable planets in the system.”

“No, there aren’t,” Pink agreed, “but it might be possible to terraform Theta-3 with relative ease.”

“Hence, us,” pointed out Orange, while also pointing forward with her chopsticks to accentuate her point.

“I miss Omicron-4.”

“Oh my god, yes! An empty habitable planet all to ourselves!” Orange pumped her fist in the air

“The sea and the smooth green sand, that place was paradise.” Pink felt all warm and cozy as she remembered the time the crew had spent exploring the planet that was now home to one of the fastest-growing A.U.S. colony.

“I doubt Theta-3 has any cute beaches though.” Purple was nostalgic for the mission they had carried in the Omicron system.

“Probably not, but the pay is good.

Orange ate the last of her rolls, then declared “I’m like eighty percent certain this is genuine fish.”

“If the tuna’s real, then their ingredient had to have come from a planet with oceans. Do you think the seas on Omicron-4 could yield healthy tunas?”

“I don’t know, the sea we bathed in barely had any salt in it. I don’t know if tunas fare well in freshwater.”

“Maybe they sent genetically modified tunas?”

“Maybe, but the GMO community has been iffy about modified fish ever since the super-cods fucked up the Arctic fisheries.”

“Counter-point: there is no ecosystem in place on the colonial world so there’s nothing really to fuck up, I’d say GMO artists are probably much more comfortable working in the Omicron System than on Terra.”

“That’s fair.

They proceeded to talk about fish for an hour.

* * *

“Hey Pink, the migraine’s back. Can I get another patch?”

“Already? Last one was three hours ago!”

Yellow shrugged. “Yeah, yeah. But you know how I am with interstellar travel, especially with new ships. The Skeld wasn’t as bad.”

“The Skeld’s interstellar speed was barely 20% of our current cruise speed, it would have taken like twenty days to reach the Theta System from the asteroid. I guess you can put patches on more often since the travel will be shorter.”

Yellow extended one arm forward while rubbing his temple with the other. Once Pink applied the interstellar-sickness patch, she sent him away, telling him to drink plenty of water and avoid looking out the windows.

Purple entered the Medbay just as Yellow walked out, they greeted each other and then both said goodbye. She took a seat close to the main terminal where Pink was working.

“Hey Purple, you’ve come to watch me work.”

“The Terra-aligned clock says it’s five o’clock, that means you need to stop working and come chill with the people.” She grabbed her sleeve and pulled meekly but with intent in her eyes.

Pink looked around the small medical office and had to agree that there was currently nothing that required her immediate attention.

“Orange sprinkled some little vino into the drinko dispenser and made a bomb sangria, we’re gonna watch a movie, come come come on.”

“Have you had some already?” Pink asked with a smirk.

“...noooooo,” she lied. 

They made their way up the stairs into the private quarters. Pink was surprised by the size of the sangria pitcher, which was large enough to get all three pretty tipsy.

“What are we watching?”

“Tetsuo! It’s an old-ass japanese movie!”

“Old? Like it’s a flat movie?”

“Not just flat, it’s in black in white.”

“What kind of vintage fucking store did you get that from?”

“I got it from Red, you know how he is with old media.”

“Did he say whether it was good?”

“He said it was weird as shit.”

“Well, worse case scenario we got your sangria.”

“Hey! That’s the right way to think!”

Pink took place next to Orange while Purple finalized the setting up of the movie. 

“Hey Pink guess what?”

“What?”

“The food printer on this ship has a popcorn setting.”

Orange lifted up a bowl filled with realistic renditions of popcorns and offered some to Pink. She was delighted to realize that the taste was faithful to real popcorn. It didn’t even have the faint aftertaste that a lot of food printers usually had. The Skeld’s printer was notorious for giving hints of soya to the taste of every single food item, but it was some weird artificial soya taste, for even the tofu had the aftertaste.

“You know what would be great with that popcorn?”

“What?”

“Butter.”

“Add it to the fucking list of food I’m shoveling down my throat once we get back home,” proclaimed Orange.

* * *

Captain White picked out the last crumpled piece of paper. “And a sixth vote for Space Horsegirl.”

Six crewmates cheered.

“This was fun, now you all get back to work, we should be in the Theta System in…” he pointed towards Blue and Green.

“Forty-five minutes,” responded Blue.

“Forty-five minutes. The probes are ready for transport, Pink, Red, Yellow, are you ready to land?”

“Top shape,” responded Red.

“Good. Blue, what’s our gameplan?”

“We should come out of interstellar travel relatively close to Theta-7, if the Brain’s calculations are correct. It should take about an hour to land, then they drop the probe, three to four hours to reach Theta-4, drop the probe, then finally about an hour and a half to reach Theta-3.”

“It should go smoothly,” added Pink. “Red’s and I’s equipment for the trek on Theta-3 is already all prepared, we’ve even already set up the Geiger counter on the right frequency.”

“Yellow?”

“Probes are ready to run as soon as their wheels touch the planets’ soil. These bad boys should have a good twenty years of data collection, at least.”

“Bad girls,” precised Pink. “We literally just voted to name the third probe Space horseGIRL.”

“Not unanimously. Red didn’t vote for that name either.”

“Don’t try to win me over, you didn’t vote for my Godzilla suggestion.”

Pink smacked her lips. “Arguably, that name wasn’t really fitting for a robotic extraterrestrial scientific probe.”

Red looked at her in silence for a few seconds, looked down, brought a finger against his cheek, then said: “Mecha-Godzilla then?”

Pink shook her head. “Space Horsegirl,” she declared, holding a fist up. The others joined in the motion, except for Yellow who was already walking away towards the engines.

* * *

The third probe was now operational. It rolled away from Pink, Red and Yellow, its camera taking in the surrounding while its various portable laboratories analyzed the air, the soil, the sunlight… Yellow rubbed his gloved hands in typical ‘my work here is done’ motion, before heading back to the ship.

Pink gazed around, watching the alien landscape with wonder. The rocks almost everywhere were dark, almost completely black and it clashed with the almost neon color of the green sky. Red explained to her that the rocks were volcanic basalt and the low amount of weathering and sediments around would indicate the planet to be still pretty young, but they wouldn’t know that for certain until the probe gathered more data as it travelled across the planet.

Red and Pink walked towards the nearby area where the intel said the foreign object would be, but they found nothing noteworthy. The counter offered a very faint noise, amplifying as they walked by a little clay mound. They dug up the mound but found nothing underneath, then spent a few minutes searching the area. 

“I think we’ll need something more powerful.”

“I agree, I’ll contact the others…” Pink connected her communicator to the ship. “Pink to A.U.S. Darwin, anybody copy?”

“Purple here, what’s up?”

“Foreign Object Theta-14 is not in the area we’ve surveyed and our counter doesn’t seem to pick up a definitive trace.”

“Okay, what do you need us to do?”

“Tell the Brain to triangulate the readings of the probe, the ship and our counter.”

“Blue here with Green, do you need us to steer the ship? Maybe fly around the region around you?”

“Not yet, wait until we have some preliminary readings.”

“Hey, Pink, come look at that!”

While she had been calling the ship, Red had wandered away and climbed up on a small hill. She met him there and he pointed out what seemed to be some sort of canyon. While waiting on the Brain to accumulate enough data to give them a direction, they went towards the canyon. It was a large fissure in the ground, about ten meters wide and a hundred deep.

“A ravine like this, it could mean water, right?”

“I don’t know, it looks more like some kind of geological fracture, maybe due to tectonic stress. This planet is a terrestrial body not too dissimilar to Terra, tectonic plates floating on a magma mantle would be very plausible. And of course that would mean pressure, faults, earthquakes, etc.”

“Yeah but look on the side there, about two hundred meters to the left, doesn’t that look like some kind of water runoff ledge or something?”

Red looked where Pink was pointing and stayed silent for a moment, before uttering, “well to be honest it kinda looks like a carved ledge.”

They walked along the ravine until they were face to face with the ledge, which seemed to branch off from the surface and snaked down along the wall towards the bottom.

“That’s a suspiciously convenient path leading down to the bottom of the ravine. You’re right, it does look carved.”

“But by who? The previous scouting teams weren’t on this planet long enough to carve a route into a ravine.”

“No, but they did find it as curious as we did, look!” Pink pointed out another peculiar sight, bringing Red’s attention to a series of aligned holes in the ground. Three circular holes, about two centimeters in diameter each.

“What is that?”

“I’m going to guess they planted spikes in the rock so that they could rappel down into the ravine.”

“Was there a ravine mentioned in the scouting report?”

“Not that I know of.”

A loud beep caught their attention. The Brain had gathered enough readings to give them a direction. They moved away from the ravine and followed the new intel, while at the same time Blue and Green up in the ship prepared a route to fly overhead to survey further.

* * *

It had been a long day. Pink and Red had to get back on the ship once to replenish their air and used the occasion to grab a lift, for the sensors indicated the objective to be a little over twenty kilometers from the spot where they had first landed. On the second landing, they walked for an hour in a field of basalt spikes, some weird geological structures that the Science Officer fawned upon, telling Pink over and over about how he had never seen anything like that on Terra or elsewhere.

The triangulated data eventually led them to a spike-covered hill. The basalt spikes were pointing diagonally, away from the middle of the hill. Once they were close enough, they realized that the hill was covered in small openings.

“There are tunnels going under, you think there could be a cave system?” asked Pink.

“I would wager no, because caves are usually made in softer sedimentary rock, but extraterrestrial geology can be surprising sometimes. Or it could have been carved in.”

They saw nothing of interest on the outside, yet they could hear the distinct clicking noise of the Geiger counter.

“You wanna go check inside?”

Red looked into the rocky entryway, then simply shook his head. “I don’t think I could even fit inside.”

“Maybe there are other openings large enough for you,” Pink said while taking out a flashlight.

“Wait, you’re going in?”

“Yeah, the counter’s acting up, the object might be inside. This hole here seems wide enough to accomodate me.”

“I will… I’ll look for another way in.”

Pink strapped the flashlight on her shoulder and then crawled in. It wasn’t too cramped, but she let out a sigh of relief when she reached a wider zone, where she was able to stand up. Taking the flashlight back in one hand and the Geiger counter in the other, she paced around the little cave. 

“Everything *-* fine down *-*ere?” Red’s voice was cut at part by static.

“Yeah it’s fine, it’s pretty cozy actually once you’re settled in.”

She moved downward, reaching a narrow hallway in which she managed to squeeze in. She waddled into the narrow passage sideways, feeling the pressure of the wall compressing her lungs. She gasped for air once she was on the other side and in this room the clicking noise got even louder. 

“*-*ound *-----*nother *---* ming in *-----*”

“Red? Can you hear me? Damnit, there must be some kind of interference in…”

She stopped in her tracks when she saw something reflecting her light. She looked closely and saw something on the ground, something dark, glistening, mesmerizing. The clicking sound grew louder and louder and her head slowly filled with a low buzzing, as if a swarm of locust was slowly darkening the skies above. The object was unlike anything she had ever seen and it called to her, beckoned her forward. She kneeled down in front of it and watched it in silence, feeling the hum growing louder, beating against her eardrums.

Her mind was drowning in an oppressive sea of darkness as she felt compelled to get close to the object, to touch it. Before she could do anything stupid, she swam up, coming out of the waters encroaching onto her psyche and she came back to her senses.

She walked away to regain her spirits when she saw a flash of light coming from the narrow hallway.

“Pink? Can you hear me?”

“I can, I’m okay, I’m okay. I’ve found the foreign object.”

“You have? That’s fantastic! I don’t think I can fit in this passage but if you come here I can pass you the lead box.”

Pink squeezed herself back and forth through the narrow corridor, opened the lead box and using some metal tongs she picked up the object and placed it inside of the box. As she did so, she felt compelled to touch it, to hold it in her hands, yet she couldn’t understand why. And above all else, she felt like it would be best to not mention this compulsion to anyone else.

* * *

White had gone to bed and the remaining crewmates were either drunk or stoned, celebrating the end of their assignment in the Theta System. Except for Pink. She had taken a couple of drinks during the night, but dumped most of the content when no one was paying her any attention. She acted drunk, even doing the worm in the middle of the Cafeteria at the great enjoyment of the other crewmates. But she did her best to stay sober, keeping her mind still and focused. When everyone else was too busy or sleepy to notice, she slipped away and went to Security, where she disabled the camera while she carefully made her way to the Storage Room.

She just wanted to take another look at the object, gaze at it, hold it for a second. As she opened the box, the artefact beckoned to her unlike anything else she had ever laid eyes on and she picked it up. As she held it in her hands, her mind was expanded beyond the realms of humanity.

She saw thousands of year, life, worlds, wars, the artefact being passed from hand to hand, countless generations of death and chaos, the artefact breathing over hundreds of years as it moved from one to another, corrupting minds and worlds and entire civilizations, meant to protect but vowed to doom its creators and anyone it would meet along the way, visions of past lives hindered by it through eyes seeing far above and below the known experience of human eyes, images filling her mind one after the other showing her the atrocities and refuses of the bodies and minds of countless monstrosities, beasts, aliens and men that came before, images that filled her mind at a pace vastly above the capacities of her human brains for what felt like years pouring in instantly. 

She fell down, dead. Then, it opened its eyes.

* * *

Pink was still… there. Present, somehow. The creature had made a crude mimic of her physicality but it wasn’t her anymore. And yet her mind was still trapped inside. She could see what the creature was doing, but the thought process was a broken mess clogged up by a multitude of alien minds, confusing Pink.

Pink witnessed as the creature pulled out the wires in the Reactor Room. During the following meeting, she tried as hard as she could to communicate with the other crewmates, to scream over the voice of the creature.

While the creature walked, she tried to analyze the new internal anatomy, to see if there was a flaw in the creature and if her spectral mind could exploit it to hinder it. She even tried to communicate with it, to tell it to fuck off. She wasn’t sure whether the creature could even hear it, but she tried nonetheless. Curses, swear words, insults and threats didn’t seem to affect it, but she kept piling on, never giving up hope that she could influence or demoralize it. 

The creature walked towards the Greenhouse after the emergency meeting. It remembered Red asking Pink to take care of some tasks and so it used the room as its hideout. Pink cringed as the creature broke its shoulder bones, modifying its general shape so that it could crawl into the ventilation system.

Pink could hear the footsteps of other crewmates above as the monster moved out of sight and she had to witness as it stabbed Yellow with the axe, before slashing the security console over and over again, before finally stabbing Yellow again, leaving the axe embedded in his back.

* * *

While waiting silently in Pink’s bedroom, the creature’s train of thought ran wild, in direction that confused and uneased Pink. There was a bit of logic to it, as it was hiding within a human body with a human brain, but there was something twisted about the very structure of its mind. Pink tried to focus on the artefact, which rested within her abdomen. She wondered if the artefact was the creature, or if it was a part of the creature. Maybe it was a supernatural or mystical artifact that corrupted any creature it came into contact with? Who had built it? Who had made it? She tried reading the monster’s thoughts and seemed to piece together parts of different stories, as if the creature’s mind was an amalgamation of past lives.

In the middle of the night, the body rose up and carefully opened the grate to the ventilation system. It was very possible that other crewmates could still be awake right now and it couldn’t risk entering too many rooms and alerting too many people. It would have to choose a target wisely and then eliminate them, before assimilating them. The fight could get messy and so could the assimilation. She could take care of the crewmate in their shower, albeit it was possible that the whole crew could hear it if she ran a shower in the middle of the night.

She crawled up to Yellow’s room, which was un attended and would make a perfect spot for a kill. Eventually, she would have to clean the blood there, but it wouldn’t be as pressing as if there was blood in a living crewmate’s quarter. It made plans to try and get to Medbay within the next few days, as it would be busy tonight. 

The Creature [REDACTED] to [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] smashed [REDACTED] teeth in [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] gouged out [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] bone protubing [REDACTED] and with a rag made out of [REDACTED]’s sleeve, [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] blood spilled on the floor [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED].

[REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED].

* * *

Navigation Room. Pink watched Purple and Orange brawling as the creature walked back towards the wall, It turned off the lights, causing panic in the room. The creature, despite being in a human body, could see as well in the dark as it could in light, so it had a distinct advantage over the humans in the room. While lights were out, it moved to the electrical panel and ripped out the wires, one second before White managed to reach the light switch, flicking it on and off uselessly.

Some crewmates went to the door, trying to open it manually and Pink realized that soon light would come back into the room. [REDACTED] threw the robot towards them and Pink managed to see part of the creature’s thought process.  _ Robot annihilation. Hurt other danger suspicions blood. Hurt self medbay corpse _ . Pink tried to understand, but then saw the creature hit itself in the head a few times, her blood spraying all over Green as she stood nearby. The creature threw the robot to the ground and let itself fall down, waiting patiently in a growing pool of blood.

Everything worked right for it and soon enough Pink’s body was lying on an operating table in the Medbay, with the crewmates trying to stabilize a body that was only faking pain and injury. The alien anatomy mimicked human anatomy but it was twisted and corrupted at the cellular level, her head could be completely chopped off and the body would keep on going, trying to complete goals that Pink couldn’t even begin to understand.

Pink was livid. To her, the fake injury would have been obvious. Her many years of medical expertise would have allowed her to see something wrong in the injury and the state in which the creature was, but the others’ obliviousness made her furious. The deep gash in her temple was obviously lethal, no human could have survived it. If she had control over her body, she would have cried with rage.

Once they were left alone, she saw the creature get up and walk over to the inert body of Yellow. It knew the layout of the Medbay thanks to Pink’s memory and could have fetched a scalpel, but Pink was appalled when she saw it simply put its hand inside Yellow’s gaping mouth. Flesh and fluids poured out of its hand into the cadaver’s stomach, slowly eating the flesh and replacing it with corrupted genetic material.

While Yellow’s cadaver convulsed, the creature walked up to the medical refrigerator, unlocked it using Pink’s medical credential, then picked the first blood pack at the front. It was Yellow’s. It put it back. It had to be the blood of someone still alive. It randomly selected another pack, hoping it wasn’t Pink’s. 

* * *

The creature was missing limbs and had a vast area of charred skin. Yet Pink could feel the same animosity and determination within the fearless mind of the monstrosity.. Pink’s mind, for some reason, was as sharp as it had been when she was alive. She was trapped in the creature’s body but her mind was free to think for herself. After Green’s death, she had spent every moment digging in the creature’s mind for clues, history, hints, anything that could help her get rid of it. She found nothing to help her own case, but she did eventually manage to see images of the crew of the A.U.S. Magellan. They had encountered the creature as well, but she couldn’t find the final outcome of the crew and could only speculate on the nature of the malfunction that caused the ship to be lost. Seeing what the creature was capable of doing, maybe it was for the best that the Magellan never made it back to the Homeworld.

She saw past alien lives, creatures from another world and brief flashes of a weird and unintuitive society, figments of memories that shocked, appalled, impressed, intrigued and endeared her but that she had difficulty keeping locked in and memorizing for herself. Humanity was not the first victim of this monster. She felt like some past interaction hadn’t been exactly predator-prey, but she couldn’t imagine any living being enjoying meeting with this, whatever it is that killed her and took her place.

She watched the creature set a trap for the ventilation maintenance robot but focused her mind on digging deeper, learning more on the creature. She would find a way to avenge herself and save her remaining crewmates, she was determined of that fact. 

And she kept digging in its twisted mind and learning about the creature, up to the moment when it got singed by the crew and thrown out of the airlock, when Pink’s ghost was freed from the monster’s corpse.

* * *


	13. Communications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that the main threat has been eliminated, the crew attempts to complete a few repairs on the ship.   
> Their priority: repairing outside communication and call for help.

**XIII**

Blue, Orange, Purple and Red were catching their breath in the Storage Room. Fear, anger, grief, anguish, the crew felt miserable and above all else, exhausted. They kept each other within view yet they kept their distance to each other. Red sat on top of a crate of electronics, holding the axe on his shoulder. Purple, looking even more disheveled and tired than ever, stood close to the Electrical hallways, slowly tracing her fingers along the handle of the flamethrower. Orange sat on the floor against a box of unprocessed foodstuff with Danger by her side, the thick red wrench to her side. Blue looked as if she was about to snap from the stress, staying on her feet close to the Communications hallways, holding the empty plasma cutter in one hand and fidgeting with a flashlight in the other.

“Seeing how you’re empty-handed, I’m going to assume you lost the surplus array?” Purple kept her eyes wandering from one crewmate to the other despite her question being directed specifically to Red.

“The thing is, the array kinda had the perfect shape.”

“Perfect shape for what?”

“For the hole. When the air in the Navigation sector had finished vacuuming, I slapped the array against the hole and glued it on.”

“You… You used the array to stitch the hole closed?”

“Yeah.”

“Would it hold to full air pressure?”

“I doubt it. I think it would be best if we kept Navigation at a low oxygen level to avoid building too much pressure in there.”

“And what if we need to get in there.”

“Then put on a spacesuit. I’m sure we could reinforce the hole from the inside, if we were to weld some thick metal plates we’d be much safer.”

“We should all put on suits anyway,” proposed Blue. “You know, a safety net in case there’s another air leak.” She glanced at the wall where the suits were stored.

“We would all be ready at all times to walk outside the ship too, if someone needs to exit hastily. You know, to make repairs outside.”

“Red, did you get rid of Yellow’s head?”

“Nope,” Red declared.

“Then let’s hope it doesn’t do any more damage. Are there any other structures outside that could be hit?”

“There are no other communications structures on the hull, so we’re good on that side,” informed Purple. She grabbed a suit and moved into a secluded corner of the Storage Room.

“I doubt human bone can pierce the hull, it’s made to withstand the harsh void of space and it is reinforced on the outside by the Shield system,” added Blue. “If the explosion that blasted the hole in Navigation had happened outside, the ship would be fine.”

“What about the Reactor exhaust?” asked Red. “Could the head crawl in there?”

“I think we have enough fuel to keep the engines fuming until we leave. This would keep the exhaust nice and crispy, burning any biological matter crawling in there. But even then, I don’t think it could actually reach the Reactor through the exhaust, it’s not a clean corridor leading out.”

“Cannons!” spouted Orange while petting Danger. “Also, my stump hurts, I think I should take some morphine.”

“Could the cannons really be damaged? They look pretty sturdy,” noted Blue.

“Cannons are safe, they’re way too thick and strong to be seriously damaged.”

“What if it crawls inside? Couldn’t it damage the… whatever system inside it?”

“I, huh…” Red held his mouth open for a moment. “I don’t know, to be honest. I’ve seen the cannons up close but I haven’t seen the internal workings. Yellow’s technical knowledge would be of great help right now.”

Blue, Orange and Red watched each other in silence while waiting for Purple to be done. After a few minutes, she stepped in wearing an hermetic space suit, with her trusty flamethrower strapped to her back. Blue grabbed her own suit and moved away from the group, leaving Red, Orange and Purple to watch each other.

“What’s up Purple. You look good in that suit.”

“Thank you Orange. Oh, do you think you’ll have difficulty putting yours on with the missing hand?”

Orange looked at the stump and winced. “It hurts, if I don’t get some painkiller I don’t know if I’ll be at my top.”

“If you do take painkillers, you’ll be woozy and unaware, leaving you in more danger than if you endure the pain.”

“Fuck, Red, are you trying to act like White? Have some compassion, you have no idea the pain she’s feeling right now.”

“I’m being pragmatic, even if it sounds insensitive.”

“Yeah, and White was pragmatic as well. You see where that got him?”

Red didn’t answer. Blue came back to the group, wearing her hermetic suit. Orange was handed hers.

“Are you going to need help?”

“I’ll manage.”

“If you need help, call and I’ll come to help,” offered Purple.

“I’ll come too,” said Blue.

“I don’t think I’ll need two people.”

“I know, but we should always split into one and three, never two and two.”

“Why?” asked Purple.

“Well it’s quite simple if you think about it. We have to assume that there is currently one or zero imposter, for if there were two or more, they would overwhelm us and kill or corrupt the remaining crewmates. So, if there is one imposter among us, we cannot let them be alone with one other crewmate. Hence, if we must split the group, we have to split it one to three, so the one is safe alone while the three can watch each other without risking becoming overwhelmed. And if sabotage happens, then it becomes clear that the one alone is the imposter.”

“Then again, if we split in groups of two, we can then know who’s the imposter if they kill their group partner.”

“Oh? And would you be willing to be the sacrificial lamb? Because I fucking don’t. I’m not dying to help you locate the bad egg in the group.”

Orange walked away while Red thought about a response. Blue, Purple and Red waited anxiously at a comfortable distance from each other. Orange eventually managed to put the suit on by herself and came back to the group.

“Good. Now what?”

“Well… Purple? Do we have a second surplus array?”

Purple’s eyebrows lifted behind the glass of her helmet. She held a hand up with the index up. “Give me a minute.” She walked away and the other three waited while she dug through the crates of the Storage Room.

When she came back, holding a communication array, Red gleefully said, “nice!”

“It is our last one.” She handed it to Red. “Do NOT lose this one too.”

“Eh, I wouldn’t call the other ‘lost’ per say. Wait, why are you giving this to me? Why would I be the one going out again?”

“All those in favor of Red going out again, raise your hand.”

Purple raised her hand. Blue and Orange also raised their hand. Red’s mouth went agape and his eyebrows dropped.

“You’ve been out before, you saw where the array goes, you’ve fought against Yellow’s head before and so you know how to push it away and protect yourself.”

“Aaaah, fuck, I guess. Alright I’ll go.” Red, with the surplus array in hand, walked to the exit sas. 

“Good luck Red.”

“Yeah, I’ll try.”

Once Red was out, the three crewmates glanced at each other, waiting for someone to stand up and give them purpose.

“Soooooo, what now?” asked Orange.

“I don’t know. I feel so tired. I just wish we could be home already. Wait, Blue, when are we supposed to jump towards CSC7?”

“I think the jump was programmed for about 2200 TST. Brain, can you confirm that?”

The Brain, listening in through the integrated headset in Blue’s helmet, responded, “Jump to CSC7 programmed for 21:45:12 Terra-Standard-Time.”

“That would be in… three hours and twenty-five minutes.”

“It’s only six pm!? Fucking hell this is a long day.”

“I really hope Red’s not the imposter because if he breaks the last array we’ll never be able to contact the homeworld.”

“I lied about that. We actually have two more left but I wanted Red to think this was the last one so we could see how he acts knowing that information.”

“And if it gets lost or destroyed again?”

“If it comes to that, I volunteer to go out and fix it.”

“And now what do we do?”

“We might as well get to Navigation and do some reinforcement on the blasted hole.” 

“We’ll use the suits’ oxygen bottles and keep the Navigation section in low atmosphere.”

“Won’t us just entering the front sector fill that place with equal pressure?”

“Not if we make the Communications corridor into a temporary sas by locking the door of the Storage Room behind us. It’ll be only the air from that corridor that will fill the Navigation and Shields, this should keep the pressure low enough, avoiding damage on the already precarious fix.”

The three crewmates picked up tools and materials, including solid sheets of metal, then locked themselves in the corridor in front of Communications. Closing the door behind them, they asked the Brain to open the door leading to Shields. The Brain asked for confirmation no less than three times, repeating each time that the front part of the ship had suffered an important loss of atmosphere.

The door opened and the crewmates felt a short but strong wind as the air exited the corridor and filled the rooms around Navigation. Danger stood behind Orange’s leg, afraid to be sucked out of the ship again. They carefully stepped forward, reaching the damaged wall. The outside wall of the ship was indeed clogged by a communication array, as Red said.

“Danger doesn’t seem too happy to be back here,” said Orange while handing a welding torch to Blue.

Blue, holding a metal sheet against the wall with one hand and grabbing the torch with the other, replied, “He’s a robot, he can’t be happy or unhappy.”

“Hey! I vehemently disagree! He’s a precious little baby and he is just as much a member of the crew as you and I!”

Purple ignored the conversation, focusing instead on welding a second metal sheet next to Blue’s. She lowered their voices within her helmet and opened up a communication channel with Red. “How is it going outside? Everything swell?”

“I haven’t seen the head anywhere, which feels like both a good and a bad sign. It’s good that it isn’t attacking me outright, because frankly I don’t want to fight that abomination. At the same time, I don’t like not knowing where it is. Do you think it’s possible it could have gotten back onto the ship?”

Purple stayed silent for half a minute, but finally answered, “Could be… How are repairs on your side?”

“I’m right by the broken array. I’m trying to check how exactly it’s installed so that I don’t mess up the new install.”

“Maybe the head is afraid of the axe? You should keep it close by in case it crawls your way.”

“Oh, thank you for telling me that, here I was putting the axe down ten meters away from me!”

“Ok, no need to be an ass.”

“What about you? What are you doing?”

“Repairing the hole in Navigation.”

“Is the array holding well?”

“We kept the pressure low, it didn’t look like it was going to break, but we’re reinforcing it just in case.” Purple glanced sideways at Blue and Orange, watching them argue. Their voices echoed softly in her helmet, enough for her to hear their tone and monitor them, but low enough so that she could fully focus on her conversation with Red.

“It’s better if we make it fully hermetic and solid, the ride home would be dangerous with a hole in the ship merely covered by a communication array.”

* * *

Purple, Blue and Orange completely covered the hole with solid material, while Red on top of the ship unbolted the broken array and placed down the new one.

“Array in place. Are communications back up to full capacity?”

“I don’t know, we’ll have to go back to the main console in Communications and boot it up.”

“Can Brain check that? Brain, how are communications?”

“Communications are down,” the mechanical voice of the Brain responded. “The Communications Officer is requested in the Communications Room.”

“Seems like that super high-tech computer can’t do everything all by itself,” added Purple smugly. “We’re about finished down here, can you stay out on top until I’ve had time to check on the comms console? If it’s not working we might need you to tweak things outside or rearrange your installation.”

“Well my air gauge says I still have at least thirty-five minutes, but I’d rather not go below twenty remaining minutes. How soon do you think you’ll be done with the repairs?”

“Blue is finishing up, give us one minute.”

“Alright, I’ll wait.”

As soon as Blue was done, the trio went back towards Communications, followed closely by a nervous-looking Danger. Inside the room, Purple sat down at the main desk, bringing Blue’s and Orange’s voice back up in her helmet.

“Here comes the maestro.” Purple booted up the interstellar communication menu, while Blue and Orange watched dumbfounded as she moved through the system and entered commands until the machine showed a progress bar. It was calibrating the signal received by the newly-installed communications array. “First part’s going well, the ship is detecting the array so at least Red we know you placed it in the right hole.”

“Nice!”

When the progress bar hit one hundred, Purple let out a sigh of relief, which made the other three much happier and alleviated a lot of stress. “It’s working, we have interstellar communications again.”

“Do you wish to send the message that previously failed to be sent?” asked the Brain.

“Bring up the transcript on screen.”

The Brain did as asked, showing a transcript of the message to be sent to A.U.S. H.Q.

“Great losses, foreign object, mutated husk that used to be Pink, death of White and Green, severed head, confirmation from you three, CSC7, military greeting, damn that’s a heavy message.”

“You have - one - incoming message,” alerted the Brain.

“We do? Maybe H.Q. got anxious from our lack of communication.”

“What does it say? OPEN IT!” screamed Orange anxiously.

“I will, I will, get off my back!”

“What’s happening?” asked Red. “Did I hear that correctly? We received a transmission?”

“You have - two - incoming messages,” alerted the Brain.

“Wait, we got a SECOND message!!?” blurted out Blue.

“The array is on but it’s still calibrating. We received them both just now, but the time stamps indicate that they were sent about an hour apart.”

“Play the first one.”

Purple set up the message so that it would play in every headset, so that every crewmate would hear it at the same time.

“This is Corporal White, aboard the A.U.S. Sigurd. We have been sent to assist the crew of the A.U.S. Darwin regarding the death of one of your crewmates. We request you to power down your engines and wait for our arrival. Your number one priority should be to locate and protect Foreign Object Theta-14. We will retrieve it and secure it once we dock with your ship. Any attempt to avoid us will be seen as an act of disobedience towards the A.U.S. and will be met with appropriate response. Corporal White, out.”

“Wait… Corporal White?” asked Blue as soon as the message ended.

“Yes, as in, our Captain’s brother,” responded Purple.

“So… that’s a good thing, right? They told us to stand down and are super threatening but Corporal White wouldn’t attack his brother’s ship? Right?”

“And how do you reckon he’ll react when he learns of his brother’s death?”

Blue didn’t respond.

“Play the second message,” Purple ordered the computer.

“This is Corporal White, attempting to contact the crew of the A.U.S. Darwin, again. We are requesting an immediate response from you as we just recovered the corpse of one of your crewmates-”

“WHAT?” Screamed Orange, interrupting the message.

“-fficer Green’s body was recovered floating-”

“Oooooh shit, that’s not good.”

“-require an explanation. Our preliminary autopsy reveals that she died from asphyxiation. Why have you jettisoned a living member of the crew? We expect a quick response from you as the situation is highly worrying. Corporal White, out.”

“How did they recover her body?” Orange sounded panicked and 

“I would assume the airlock is facing towards the interstellar tunnel leading to CSC7,” explained Blue. “The Brain must not have turned the ship forward yet, waiting until the programmed time of the jump until doing so.”

“If they got Green, then we have to assume…”

“You have - one - incoming message,” alerted the Brain.

Purple froze in her seat. She looked back at the other crewmates.

“As in, a third message?” Red’s voice resounded in their helmet, accompanied by static.

“It appears so,” responded Purple grimly.

She waited anxiously in front of the computer. Neither Blue nor Orange pushed her to play the message, as seemingly all three crewmates were apprehensive to hear the content of the third message.

“Is it playing in the comms room? I could hear the other two messages in my helmet.”

“No, Red, I haven’t started the message yet.”

“Oh. Because I think I see their ship.”

“What!?” Purple yelled.

“How far are they,” asked Blue with a shaky voice.

“They are coming in steadily. They should reach us in a few minutes. We better hear what they have to say to us before they get here.”

Purple took a few breaths, expecting the worst. “Brain, play the new message.” All four crewmates’ helmets resonated with the angry voice of Corporal White.

“Okay, now what the fuck is happening on your ship? We have recovered two new bodies, one too calcined to recognize. We know that Captain White has been murdered and we order whoever took charge of the ship to communicate with us AT ONCE. We will-”

“Oh shit oh shit oh shit, Purple, FUCK, you have to tell them to throw out the bodies!”

“YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT?”

“-amputated body, we have to assume it belongs to Yellow as we know he was murdered-”

“BRAIN for fuck sake I need to send them a message.”

“Should I continue reading the incoming message?” asked the machine.

“Put the written version on the screen. Blue, Orange, read the rest of it.”

While Blue and Orange did as asked, Purple hurriedly tried to open a communication channel with the military ship. No response. She tried them again and again, and eventually typed up a message to be sent to the A.U.S. Sigurd. In it, she warned them to not touch the bodies and throw them out of the ship without delay, for they were highly infectious with an unknown alien disease. She wasn’t certain how true that was, but she assumed this would be enough to convince the military crew to be careful with them.

“Corporal White is really mad about his brother’s death,” summarized Blue. “They are doing an autopsy of his body. We’re so fucked.”

“Hummm, mates?”

“What is it Red?”

“They’re really fucking close.”

“We’re gonna prepare the airlock then.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” declared Red, standing still on top of the ship, watching the military ship in shock. “They’re… They’re not slowing down.”

Blue, Orange and Purple glared at each other with fear.

“A… As in they…”

“Yeah. Brace for impact.”

Red watched powerlessly as the military ship came crashing into the side of their scientific exploration vessel. The force of the impact sent him flying away, causing him to panickedly grab hold of the safety cable. The fire axe flew away into the empty void of space, forever lost. 

* * *


	14. Impact Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the impact of the A.U.S. Sigurd, the remaining crewmates have a difficult conversation on the outcome of their expedition.

**XIV**

A red flashing light filled the Communications Room. Blue slowly stood back up, holding onto a nearby desk while looking around the room. The room felt woozy, even though she felt like she had handled the collision relatively well. She then realized that the weird feeling must have been caused by the ship’s rotation. Orange and Purple were slowly getting their bearings as well.

“Red, this is Blue, come in… Red?”

No response. Blue stood in the middle of the room, legs spread and arms up, trying to gauge the state of the ship. She could feel it moving in a circular motion, clockwise if seen from above. Considering the Sigurd had picked up the ejected corpses, it had arrived from the direction of the airlock, thus on the Storage Room side. Considering the direction of the rotation, she assumed the collision happened on the aft of the ship, probably around the Lower Engines. If it had hit near the front, it might have shredded through Communications and crushed them.

“Come in Red. Please tell me you’re okay.” She was trying to call him on the public channel, but the only response came from Orange.

“Fuck, I think I might have broken a rib.”

Purple stood up, looking dizzy and disoriented for a few seconds, before shaking her head and grasping the handle of the flamethrower.

“Did we just get hit?” asked Orange with an incredulous tone.

“It appears the military ship crashed into our ass. Well, our ship’s ass,” specified Blue.

Purple finally joined the conversation, “My head is killing me. I think I’m having nausea, I might have a concussion.”

“You might, but also the whole ship is rotating on itself. That can’t be good for our heads.”

“Yeah, I feel it too,” added Orange. “I hope I don’t fucking puke in my suit.”

“Red’s not answering us.”

“I know, I’ve heard the static silence.”

“You think he’s alive?” asked Purple.

“I don’t know, he could just be knocked out, the crash velt pretty violent. Brain, how’s the ship?”

“Depressurization occured in the Lower Engines. The sector was sealed. Forty percent of the ship’s atmosphere was lost. Taking into account the nineteen percent lost in the previous depressurization, current ship atmosphere is at approximately forty-eight percent of starting level.”

“Is that going to be enough for us to make it back home?”

“There is only enough remaining oxygen and oxygen production to sustain six crewmembers, if the ship is brought back as soon as possible to a refueling station.”

“Well, at least the few of us remaining won’t asphyxiate,” grimly joked Purple.

“What if there are survivors on the military ship and their atmosphere is all fucked up?”

“If there were, they wouldn’t have crashed into us.”

“Couldn’t the ship A.I. dock the ship without a pilot?” asked Orange.

“The Brain is experimental new tech, not every ship is built with such an advanced computer,” explained Blue. “And a lot of the military pilots I know much prefer manual piloting. They must not have expected they would need to switch to autopilot.” She brought her attention back to the Brain. “You said there would be enough oxygen if we went right away back to CSC… What if there are technical difficulties and we can’t depart right away?”

The artificial intelligence pondered for a few milliseconds. “Considering four living crew members. Considering 48% remaining atmosphere. Considering fully functioning Greenhouse. Considering ship damage. Considering interstellar jump time towards nearest station; CSC7. The crew or part of the crew will suffocate before reaching safety if the ship stays in the Theta system for sixty-seven hours and twelve minutes.”

“Well, we got a bit of leeway then. Brain, can you tell us anything on Red’s status?”

“Twenty-three minutes and forty-four seconds ago, he mentioned that his oxygen gauge was at thirty-five minutes remaining. The microphone in his helmet is picking up breathing noise, it is believed he is alive but unconscious.”

“You better wake up soon Red…” said Purple.

“We might send someone outside to rescue him?”

“I’m not going,” said Orange, who was looking around for Danger. The little robot whirred softly once she found it stuck in a box. He had a few bumps but was still running smoothly.

Blue, glancing at Purple and Orange, moved to a corner of the room. Purple was surprised to get a notification for a private call.

“Blue?”

“We have to talk.”

“Okay, but why the fuck are you excluding Orange?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t go back.”

“What? Do you mean... “ Purple stopped talking. They both stared at each other in silence.

Orange watched them while holding up Danger in her arms. “You two okay?”

Purple turned to her to grab her attention while Blue talked.

“You’ve seen what this thing did to Yellow, what it did to Pink. And even after all the punishment we dished out on her, her burnt corpse seemingly still managed to wreck havoc on four highly-trained soldiers. You really want that thing to get back to the homeworld?”

“Why are you telling this to me alone?” asked Purple, while holding a hand up in front of her mouth to hide her talking from Orange.

“I don’t think she would agree to the plan.”

Before Purple could answer, they were interrupted by Red’s voice. “What the fuck happened!? Where am I?”

“Red! Red are you okay!?”

“I’m alive… for now.”

“What do you mean, for now?”

“My oxygen’s running low, but I’m seeing the head crawling around on the ship’s roof. It doesn’t seem to have seen me but if I move I might catch its attention and I don’t want to fight it unarmed.”

“Unarmed?”

“Lost the axe during the crash.”

“Dang it. Okay, what can we do to help you?”

“I don’t know. The head seems to be crawling towards the new ship. It crashed into I think the Lower Engines and the head’s probably going to use the new hole to crawl back into our ship.”

“The doors leading to Lower Engines have been hermetically shut down, it’s not crawling back into our quarters.”

“Yeah, but the Sigurd’s crew probably had welding torches or other tools that can cut through our doors.”

“Fuck I didn’t consider that. And if they turned, that could be really bad news for us.”

Blue interrupted the conversation, “Red, we have to talk about our endgame here.”

“Please explain further,” asked Red, puzzled.

“I think maybe we ought not to go back home.”

“Excuse me,” said Orange, “but cordially go fuck yourself.”

“Listen to me Red. Do you think we should take the risk of bringing that thing back home?”

“Fuck no.”

“Purple agrees with us.”

“Hey, I’m still on the fence here. I think we can find the imposter and there is still a chance we can make it back alive and well. We shouldn’t abandon hope too quickly.”

“I’m not dying here,” simply added Orange.

“The risk is too high,” Red declared. “I’ve been considering this as well for a while and if there is a chance we could bring that monstrosity back on the Homeworld, I say we should consider destroying the ship with everyone in it.”

“What. The FUCK. Has everyone in here gone fucking mad?” Orange paced around the room, angrily glaring at Purple and Blue.

“Think about it,” asked Blue. “You’re the Humanities Officer, you know our moral responsibility is to protect the majority. Right now, that’s everyone back on Terra. If we go back and one of us is infected, we run the risk of ending humanity once and for all.”

“Don’t try to gaslight me you fucking psychopath. You talk as if you know what I’m talking, as if your ideas are the rigorous truth and I would be stupid to not think like you do.”

“Maybe we should vote,” added Red.

“No, fuck no. Or, rather, if we decide to vote on whether or not we nuke the ship, it should be a unanimous decision.”

“I disagree, I think a vote with a majority would be just fine.”

“You say that because then you’d know you’d win. You got Blue and Purple on your side, so it doesn’t matter what I think.”

“I would probably abstein. I honestly don’t know what the best course of action is here.”

“Then we’d have two votes for out of four votes, that’s not a majority. So now that we know that, how about you two shut the fuck up about your martyr ideas.”

“You think I WANT to die?” screamed Blue. “I want to go home and see my parents, hold my cat, hang out with my friend, live my life and see what the future has to show. I don’t want to be a martyr, but at least I’m able to see the big picture here and realize that this fucking parasite fucker could exterminated everything and everyone if we let it come back home.”

“Come on Orange, listen to her. Be rational.”

“I’m not fucking dying and that’s final.

“Well, for starters I propose we stop the programmed interstellar jump. If we do end up going back home, we really have to take care of our current issues beforehand.”

Orange looked at Blue for a moment before agreeing, “yeah I’m cool with that. We are going back home, at least those of us that are still, huh, us, but I agree we can wait before doing the jump. Hey can we even do the jump with one damaged engine?”

“It depends how much damage it has received.”

Blue stepped out of the room and waited for the other two to follow her. They made their way to Navigation, satisfied to see that so far the repairs were holding on. Blue hastily cancelled the jump, then the other two watched as she moved from one menu to the other.

“What are you doing right now?

“We had to wait before jumping because of a passing celestial body, so I’m checking if there are any other passing obstacles that could cause delays.”

“Can’t we just move the ship manually to a better spot before jumping, or whatever?”

“Not with our busted up Lower Engines. Manual piloting is going to be really tricky, but the Interstellar Jump can be done from here in a straight line towards CSC7, where we can get repairs on the engines. That is, if we do end up going back.”

“Yeah yeah, shut up.”

Blue typed up a few inputs then contacted the Brain. “Can you help me stabilize the ship, Brain?”

“Rotating remaining thrusters in accordance with your current objective.”

“Red, can you see the ship’s rotation slowing down?”

“Yeah, that’s good, it’s slowing down. I don’t want to make a fuss here, mates, but I’m running very low on air here.”

“Do you still see the head?”

“It crawled into the Engine Room I think, I don’t see it anywhere.”

“We’ll meet you by the Airlock, if you have any followers we’ll protect you.”

“And how are you going to do that? With your flamethrower?”

“Yeah, I mean I… huh, oh shit that’s right. This thing’s going to be useless outside the ship huh.”

“You still have the plasma cutter?”

Blue grabbed the handle of the cutter at her belt. Orange slipped her hand in her pocket, fidgeting with the plasma cells. Neither of them wanted the other to hold the charged weapon and neither wanted Purple to hold both the plasma cutter and the flamethrower.

“Mates?”

Before they could respond, they heard a series of faraway bangs. Blue, Orange and Purple swiftly jogged out of Navigation, listening carefully. More noise reverberated through the ship. They traversed the Shield Room, passed by Communication and reached the Storage Room. The sound was coming from the direction of the Lower Engines Room.

“I think we got company.”

* * *

“How come their ship shredded through ours!? Don’t we have shields?”

“I would have to assume all the power outages messed up with the shields and no one thought to prime the shields.”

Ghost Pink floated through the ship towards the Shield Room, closely followed by Ghost Green. She stopped in front of the shield console, then tried to touch it. Her incorporeal hand passed through, angering her.

“I told you, we can’t do shit with the physical stuff.”

Ghost Pink thought back to the last hours she spent in the imposter’s corpse. While it crawled around trying to mess up the ship and the crew, she had scoured its mind and memories, seeing snippets of previous life forms. She held her hand up towards the console, thinking back to a memory that wasn’t her own but felt like it.

Ghost Green watched her with wide eyes. She was a rational and skeptical person, like pretty much everyone else that was a crewmate on a scientific exploration vessel. And yet there she was, a floating ghost watching another floating ghost while their remaining living friends were fighting off a body snatching alien. She had no idea what her friend was trying to do, but the confidence with which she acted was almost enough to convince her that she knew what she was doing.

“So, huh. What is this?”

“I’m trying to do something I’ve seen.”

“What.”

“Something.”

“What.”

“I don’t know, shush.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Ghost Green watched carefully and in silence, seeing the deceased Medical Officer concentrating on the shield console was puzzling, but also interesting. She looked at the little screen, which showed the unprimed shields, when suddenly one of the hexagons lit up.

“WHAT! How did you do that?” 

Ghost Pink looked at her with a smirk. “I’ll show you.”

* * *

Blue, Orange and Purple stood in front of the Lower Engines Room door. Loud bangs echoed through the corridor around them.

“You think they want to communicate with us?” Blue looked nervous, holding a large wrench she had picked up in the Storage Room.

“They would have called,” replied Purple.

“So, you really think they’ve all been body-snatched?”

“Yeah, it seems like it.”

“What should we do?”

“If they start thinking, they might grab some stronger arsenal and actually cut through the door. If we don’t nuke the ships-”

“We won’t,” interrupted Orange.

“... if we don’t, then I say we should eliminate the threat before it gets to us.”

“You’re going to need a better weapon,” noted Blue.

“I know that.”

“Oh fuck!” Red’s voice caught their attention due to its frightened tone. “One of them just crawled out of the wrecked section. I think it sees me.”

“Don’t move, maybe it won’t see you.”

“Ah fuck, it’s looking right at me. Shit shit shit shit shit!”

“Run!”

“How? I’m hanging in the void at the end of a cable!”

“We can’t let him die out there alone!” yelled Orange!

They ran to the Airlock, wondering which one of them would go out.

“Wait, one of us is still potentially infected,” exclaimed Blue. “We should stay in groups of one and three. As in, two people go out with Red and one of us stays inside.”

“So, who goes out?” asked Purple. “I’m more suited for indoor fighting, I should stay inside.

“I’m literally missing a hand and I have no weapon at all,” responded Orange.

“I’m going out,” declared Blue, opening the inside door of the Airlock and walking in it.

Orange and Purple looked at each other. Neither wanted to go out.

“Are you fucking for real?” Blue rolled her eyes

“Fuuuuck, it's crawling towards the base of the cable. Should I cut it? I don’t want to be assimilated!”

Blue looked intensively at the other two crewmates. Purple strongly held up her flamethrower, looking nervously at Blue then Orange then Blue. Orange felt her legs tensing as she was ready to run away. Blue cursed them and then closed the door. Then, she opened the outer Airlock door. Orange glanced at Purple, seeing her hold up the flamethrower. She turned heels and ran away from her. Purple gasped, but didn’t run after her.

She turned towards the Airlock and through the window watched Blue walking out with the wrench in hand.

Purple quickly walked away towards the Security Room, where she would have access to the remaining security cameras.

* * *

Lime crawled over the ship, its broken neck allowing it to turn its head backwards and towards the floating crewmate. The creature still had the biological impulses of the once-alive body, which was desperately gasping for air that was absent in the void of space. Despite veins growing and popping across its body and its orifices weeping blood, it kept moving with the same tenacity.

It was still wearing its military uniform, which was covered in holes and gashes from an apparent previous physical fight. It had an empty holster on its belt, as well as a small knife in a scabbard on the side of its boot.

The floating crewmate appeared to prefer being on more stable ground, as he grabbed the anchoring cable and pulled on it, slowly moving his body down towards the ship. Lime, its eye bulging out of its head, kept crawling, hoping to position itself under the crewmate. In the vacuum of space, it was surrounded by silence and its fragile visual organs were being highly damaged by the vast differential pressure. And with its attention turned up to the floating crewmate, it didn’t notice the other crewmate.

* * *

Blue sidestepped around and then swung her wrench violently at the crawling creature, hitting it from below as if she was playing golf. The monstrosity was thrown up, a few of its fingers breaking and staying stuck on the ship. It flailed around in the void, spewing blood and guts from its damaged belly. 

Red touched down on the ship, locking eyes with Blue. His air supply was running dangerously low. Blue pointed towards the airlock and Red was about to follow her in, but they saw the bleeding creature split in half, spewing blood violently away from the ship to try to push itself down toward the ship. Its plan worked, as it fell back on the A.U.S. Darwin, between the two crewmates and the Airlock.

Red saw another monstrosity claw its way out of the wreckage, then on the other side a pair of legs and a legless corpse glared at him angrily. He didn’t have much time left and the way to the Airlock was blocked. He started a private call with Blue.

“I’m gonna suffocate in about two minutes and I can’t see us going into the Darwin before I die. I’m gonna try making it for the Sigurd Airlock.”

“What?”

Red clamped his legs down on the ship, then pushed against it to propel himself towards the A.U.S. Sigurd. Blue watched in a mix of awe and fear as he passed by her and flew towards the other ship. She realized that he would miss the ship.

“RED!”

“Don’t worry, I got this.”

He activated the magnetic soles of his suit’s boots, which pulled him right on the ship, next to the Airlock. Blue turned to the creatures and didn’t need to be told twice. The legless half pulled itself her way, opening its mouth wide as if to scream or to show its teeth. She pushed against the ship and jumped towards the Sigurd airlock, moments before the creature tried to grasp her leg.

“Huh, Red, how do I activate the magnets?”

Red turned towards the flying Blue and not knowing how to explain it quickly enough, he reached out. Seeing his arm out, she grabbed it as she passed by and he pulled her onto the ship. Once they were both next to the airlock, Red tried accessing the Airlock door. In the distance, the pair of legs sprouted a bunch of tentacles and crawled all over the Darwin Airlock, covering the glass window with blood and guts.

“I can’t open it, it’s not accepting my A.U.S. code!”

“Here, let me try.” Blue proposed before entering her own code.

The Airlock opened. Red rushed in, closely followed by Blue. Within seconds, they managed to close the outer door and open the inner one. Blue could hear Red’s raspy difficult breathing as he rushed inside the military ship. Blue checked the suit’s sensor, which indicated that the room around them currently had a breathable atmosphere. She assumed Red had seen the same thing, because he hastily took off his helmet and gasped hard, again and again.

* * *

Orange arrived in the Weapons Room. She had no current plans to access the weapons locker, but she didn’t want anyone else to get more firepower. Danger rolled up behind her, stopping next to her leg.

“What are we doing buddy?”

He looked up at her but didn’t respond.

“Right, we need more firepower but the armory is locked again.”

She slipped her hand into her pocket, feeling the wet eye of the former captain. Danger whirred softly.

“You’re right, the only accessible projectile right now would be a fire extinguisher. It can also serve as a defence against Purple.”

Danger rolled around her once then stopped in front of her, looking up.

“See, little buddy. I need to protect myself from the others. You trust me, don’t you buddy.”

No response.

“I knew you did. You’re my only friend left here, Danger. You should not trust anyone other than me.”

Danger tilted its camera to the side.

“Purple, Blue, Red, they may be dangerous. Do not give them your trust. Be ready to defend yourself and me, just like what you did to Pink. You remember? How you saved me? How you protected us, you and I?”

No response.

“Good boy.”

She walked away, expecting Danger to follow her. She stepped carefully into the Cafeteria, a large room where she might get the advantage over the flamethrower-wielding Purple if she needed. She grabbed the room’s fire extinguisher and made a wall of tables in a corner of the room, where she hid with the little robot.

* * *

Blue glanced around the room. Blood splatters and dents surrounded the hallways in front of them and on their right. A few bullet casings rolled at her feet. Evidently, the A.U.S. marines had to learn the hard way that regular bullets were useless against the shapeshifting horrors. If Yellow’s head could have survived on its own, a bunch of bullets through the stomach would do nothing to stop an imposter.

The lights flickered. Blue looked up and saw that some of the neon tubes had been the victims of gun shots. Steam slowly whistled out of a burst pipe. The cramped, dark corridors of the Sigurd felt much more claustrophobic than the well-lit and spacious corridors of the Darwin.

“You’ll be okay mate?”

“Holy shit yes, I legitimately thought I would die out there.”

“You should put your helmet back on now,” she whispered.

Red took a few more breaths in and then put the helmet back on. He stood up and turned to Blue.

“Thank you.”

“You would have done the same thing.”

“Why did your code work and not mine?”

“Pilots’ and captains’ codes often work on other A.U.S. ships. I’m sure your personal code would work on any A.U.S. scientific vessels, but it’s not useful to access military ships.” 

“That was risky. I mean, you exited the ship and now you’re stuck alone with me. What made you believe it was worth it?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure Orange’s the imposter.”

“What if you’re wrong.”

“What if I’m right? What if no one came out to save you and you ended up being killed by one of those things? You would’ve been turned into another one of those monsters, diminishing even more our chances of survival. I made a gamble and I'm hoping it pays off.”

“Good point. Still, we should check up on the other two.”

“Right.”

Red called the other two. Purple responded.

“Red? Are you alright?”

“I’m good, Blue saved my life. I’m breathing now.”

“That’s good. Can you see Orange? Is she with you in the Storage Room.”

“We’re not on the Darwin.”

“You’re n… Wait what?”

Orange buzzed in, “Blue you fucker you left me alone with Purple! Literally seconds after you told us to be careful not to split the group!”

“Ah, shut up you fucker, I’m not the goddamn imposter.”

“Oh but you could be! I know I am not the imposter, which still leaves the possibility that it could be any one of you three.”

Blue saw Red roll his eyes. He then chimed in, “you are the only one of us who will not consider the possibility of sacrificing the ship to protect humanity, so sit down officer.”

While Orange shouted back in anger, Blue put the group conversation on low volume at the back of her helmet, then talked with Red. “We need a plan here. The creatures in the wrecked cockpit were trying to beat down the door to get farther into our ship, but they might try to move back into this ship and disembowel us.”

“They must have weapons here. The creature had an empty holster. A personal weapon maybe? They might have forgotten their weapon back in their private quarter.”

“I have no idea what the layout of this ship is.”

“We should try to access the central A.I.”

“I doubt the ship is equipped with an actual A.I., otherwise it would have been able to dock itself despite the crew having become monster fodder.”

“So then the mainframe or whatever.”

“Or we could just search around.”

“... Yeah I guess that works.”

The two crewmates went through the left hallway, which hadn’t been splattered with blood. They roamed around the ship, listening attentively for any signs of the creatures, nervously glancing left, right, up and down and walking away from any ventilation shafts. Orange’s and Purple’s voices were almost muted in their helmet, as they focused on the sounds heard by their helmet external microphones. They passed into the Engines and Reactor rooms, which were empty and silent. As they walked around, they realized that the Sigurd had a really similar set up to the Darwin, except it was much smaller, much more narrow. There was no Security Room close to the Reactor.

"If you're considering nuking the mission, why bother saving me?"

"Key word here is considering. I would really enjoy surviving this shitshow and going back home. But as I said, I'd rather die than lead those things back home. Sending the ship into the Theta star is a surefire way to protect every other member of the human race."

Red couldn't argue with that. “You think the security systems are in the Navigation Room?”

“Could be in Administration. Or there could be a generalized mainframe room close to Navigation, with the security, communication and administration systems.”

Passing by the Medbay, they noticed a large amount of blood splattered on the walls and floor.

“They must have taken the infected bodies here.”

“Let’s just not open that door,” proposed Blue.

“Agreed.”

A trail of blood as well as a series of random footprints went away from the Medbay, towards the front of the ship. The Cafeteria, if it could even be called that, was a tiny little dining room with a central round table. In a nearby wall was a vertical tunnel with a ladder going up. The two crewmates climbed up, arriving in the cramped hallway of the private quarters. The doors had no paraphernalia or name tags identifying each individual room.

Blue tried the first door, which opened to an undisturbed room with a cleanly made bed. They looked quickly, finding no weapons but a relatively large pocket knife, which Red grabbed. The second door had blood splatters and appeared to be locked, so they opened the third door.

Blue’s eyes widened as she was met with the barrel of a A.U.S. military-issued pistol. She lifted her hands nervously while maintaining eye contact with the crewmate in front of her. Red didn’t know whether he should drop the knife or keep it hidden just in case.

Corporal White, drenched in sweat and blood, breathing hard, held his pistol up at Blue, moving the barrel closer to the front of her helmet. His eyes flashed with fear and anger. His other hand held up a welding torch, not pointed at Blue but still held with conviction.


	15. The Crew of the A.U.S. Sigurd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who are the crewmates of the A.U.S. Sigurd?

**XV**

_November 8th, 2135, A.U.S. Sigurd_

_-Operative Log-_

_We have arrived in the Theta system. Once we reach their location, we will be ready to board the A.U.S. Darwin, if they do not relinquish the artefact._

_Special Agent White, Out._

Once he was done with the Operative Log, he sent a message towards the A.U.S. Darwin telling them to stand down, that the crew of the Sigurd came to assist them and retrieve the artefact.

White closed the communication console and joined the rest of the crew who were waiting in the Storage Room. 

Agent Brown, the jarhead of the group, was cleaning each individual part of their old-school firearm, an 8th-generation Glock 17 manufactured almost a hundred years ago. A family heirloom passed down through four generations, the Brown family had kept the weapon clean and in working condition through multiple wars and space-faring missions. Of course, Brown also owned an A.U.S.-regulated plasma weapon, which they had deemed “efficient but a bit shitty on the aim”.

Agent Lime and Agent Black were playing chess, using the ‘classic pieces’ skin on the virtual chessboard. Black played white. Lime, who also acted as the team’s medic, was by far the best chess player on board and was currently on his third win of the day against Black. Black was fuming, as she witnessed her queen being taken by a bishop. Special Agent White had also played Lime a few times during the interstellar travel and had lost every single game, for Lime could presumably see hundred of moves ahead. 

Agent Cyan sat in the corner, her eyes open but blank. When he had first met her, White had found it creepy whenever she would do these micro-naps, sometimes standing or sitting upright, but he was used to it now. In a few minutes she would wake up rejuvenated. He had tried to learn her technique more than once, but he always ended up feeling exhausted after a few days. Nevertheless, he appreciated having a team member that was awake most of the night, every night.

“Oh, hey boss.” Black turned her attention to him, quickly pushing the reset button on the board.

“Hey! We hadn’t finished our game!”

“Oh no, I’m sorry, now we’ll never know who would have won, I’ll note that game as a tie for us.”

Lime scoffed, then smiled. He knew if he argued about it, it would only please her further.

“We’ll wait for Cyan,” declared White.

Lime reopened the chessboard, loading the last saved position of the game and looked at Black expectantly. Black smiled, stood up, tapped him on the shoulder and resigned before walking out of the room. She quickly went to the Dining Room to print a snack.

Cyan woke up just as Black stepped back into the room with a protein bar. White snapped his fingers to get everyone’s attention. Within five seconds, Brown reassembled their firearm and shoved it back into their holster, then stood up straight facing White. Black leaned against a wall with her arms crossed. Lime carefully closed the chessboard before standing up. Cyan silently stood up.

“As you know, we will soon reach the A.U.S. Darwin. They have picked up the artefact known as F.O.Θ.14 and have since been afflicted with the murder of a member of the crew. I assume you’ve all read the official report of the A.U.S. Magellan’s demise.”

Black snickered. “Technical malfunction...”

“That is the version of the facts that the crew of the Darwin know of. They have been equipped with much stronger containment equipment, so A.U.S. believed they would be alright. When we got out of the interstellar tunnel, we received updates from Headquarters. The containment failed.”

“What a surprise,” muttered Brown.

“It appears there is a traitor in their crew. The artefact was stolen and their engineer has been murdered.”

“Oh, well then it’s a good thing they sent backup,” Brown announced smugly.

“I want to remind you that this is a cooperative mission. We are here to relieve the scientific crew of the artefact and help them locate the traitor. We are meant to avoid unnecessary casualties.”

“Define unnecessary.”

“Well, Black, if they’re not shooting at you, the casualty is unnecessary.”

“Got it.”

“They are A.U.S. civilians, thus cooperation is key. But the mission still comes first… Adjourned.”

Cyan made a salute, then walked out towards Navigation. Brown and Lime went out not too long after, heading towards the Administration. Black stepped towards the team leader. 

“A game of chess?” she asked, while selecting the medieval skin for the chess pieces, making every piece look like a little realistic porcelain figurine. White agreed to play a game. He much preferred playing against Black than against Lime, for their relatively equal skill level made each game interesting, as opposed to the one-sided overpowering plays of Lime. Black played black. White opened with a queen’s gambit.

“I’ve read the technical sheet on the Darwin.” C7 pawn to C6.

“So then you know my brother is captain of the ship.” G2 pawn to G3.

“Does he know about you?” G7 pawn to G6

“Like every other A.U.S. civilian, he thinks I’m still a corporal.” Queen to B3.

“I suppose that’s for the best.” King’s bishop to G7.

White considered the board for a moment, before moving his king’s bishop to H3.

“Is there a risk your family ties could compromise the mission?” Queen’s bishop takes king’s bishop on H3.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Queen takes pawn on B7.

Black took a moment to think about her next move. “I know you, I know your record. I trust you, Boss.” Queen’s knight to D7.

White moved his queen to C6.

“But still, he’s family. What if he is the traitor?” Queen to A5. “Check.”

Queen’s bishop to D2. “I doubt he is.”

“But you don’t know, that’s the point.” Queen to B6.

Queen takes pawn on D5. “He’s my brother, I know him well enough.”

“He doesn’t know about your actual position in the A.U.S.” Queen’s rook to C8.

“I’m the one with secrets, see.” King’s knight takes bishop on H3

King’s bishop takes pawn on D4.

King’s knight to G5

Queen takes pawn on B2.

Queen takes pawn on F7. “Check.”

“What about the rest of the crew?” King to D8.

“I’ve met their Communications Officer, Purple. I only know the others from reading their files.” King’s knight to E6. “Check mate.”

“Damn, that was a quick game. You didn’t even have time to castle.”

“What is that? What’s that fixation with me and castling?”

“Because you do it like ninety percent of the time.”

“Lime said the same thing. I don’t always castle.”

The room’s intercom blared a message from Brown. “Boss, we got something on the radar.”

Black and White got up and quickly reached the Navigation Room. Brown, Cyan and Lime were there, watching the radar screen.

“What is it? Another ship?”

“It’s too small for a ship. I think it’s… I think it’s a person?”

* * *

Green’s body, highly damaged by the vacuum of space, laid dead and frozen on the operating table of the Sigurd’s Medbay.

“What the fuck,” muttered Brown.

“It’s hard to tell with the head damage, but I think this could be…” Black put up holograms of the other crew’s files. “... Blue or Green. The hair length and color fits.”

“It’s Green, their Navigation Officer.” declared Cyan.

“How can you be sure?”

“Look on the nose. Focus on the symmetrical marks on each side.”

“You’re right, there are some kinds of shallow oval indentations. What is that?”

“These marks are from the nose pads of a pair of glasses. In their file pictures, Green is wearing glasses, Blue isn’t.

“Fuck, Cyan, you’re like a goddamn hawk.”

“I have to be,” responded the pilot.

“No equipment to survive in outer space and clear signs of asphyxiation,” explained Lime. “She was thrown out from the ship and died outside.”

“What the fuck,” repeated Brown.

“She was murdered… or executed.” declared Black.

“Have they responded to our message?” Cyan asked White.

“No, but they should have. I sent the communication almost an hour ago. We have to get to them as soon as possible. The sooner we can reach them and secure their ship, the better it’ll be for everybody.”

White walked out, followed by everyone but the medic. Cyan and Brown turned to get to the Navigation Room, while Black and White entered the Administration Room. White recorded a new transmission and sent it to the Darwin. Behind him, Black picked up a heavy plasma rifle from the weapons locker, which in this ship could be opened by any single member of this crew.

White already had an A.U.S. issued pistol in his back holster, but he did spend a moment wondering whether it would be worth considering picking up bigger firepower.

“Shit. Mates, you won’t believe this.” Brown’s voice reverberated in the room through the comms system. “We’re picking up another one on the radar. Same approximate size, very probably another body.”

White sighed. “Are we close to their ship?”

“I amplified our readings. I do see a ping that is most probably the Darwin, I’m waiting on the periscope to send us a visual signal. I’m also detecting what I believe could be a third body.”

White clenched his fists. Black slowly grabbed an additional bandolier of plasma cells.

* * *

White’s watch kept him updated on the ship’s communication, but every time he nervously looked at it, there were still no updates. The second body had been picked up. It was burnt and had a protuberance sticking out of the belly. As soon as it had gotten past the airlock, it was lifted up by Lime and Black and placed on a stretcher. White clamped the side of the stretcher, watching the body attentively. The face was badly damaged, both eyes were missing. The head was burnt, the hairline was completely smoldered. But White recognized the metal necklace. His brother’s necklace.

The crew expected him to act professional, but they would have understood if he had acted emotionally. He felt rage rising in his heart as his fist clenched into the metal bar on the side of the stretcher.

“Lime. Find out what killed him.” He briskly walked out. Lime looked down and saw a visible dent in the metal where White had clenched his fist.

White reached the Administration Room and had to fight the urge to rip the computers apart and throw everything on the ground. He breathed slowly, doing his best to remain calm. His brother wouldn’t have wanted him to lose his calm. Black and Brown entered the room behind him.

“I’ll be okay,” he responded before they even had to ask.

“We know you will, Boss,” said Black.

“You wanna torpedo their ship with the rest of the crew?” proposed Brown.

“Remember, our main mission is to retrieve the artefact. I would not let vengeance sully our track record, Brown.

“Make sense.”

Nevertheless, White grabbed a few grenades from the weapons locker. Just in case. He checked the communications console. Still no response. “Let’s get the third body.”

They went back to the Airlock, where Lime had brought back the stretcher after moving the deceased Captain White on an operation table. Cyan positioned the ship and picked up the incoming corpse with the external claw. They pulled it in, remarking that it was in an even worse condition that the other two. The body was burnt, with missing limbs and a gaping hole near the belly, its ribs sticking out. Actually, there were a fearful number of bones sticking out of the body in places where no one had ever seen bones sticking out. It was horrifying. 

“Okay, what the fuck kind of shitshow is happening in that ship?” Brown was dumbfounded by the horrid state in which the corpse was

“This one is way too damaged to be recognizable,” declared Black

“We know their engineer, Yellow, died. It could be him.” presumed White.

“And if it isn’t, that means they lost four members of their eight-people crew. Things have gone to shit for them.

Cyan announced through the comms, “A.U.S. Darwin is in view. We should be there soon, ten minutes at most.”

"Acknowledged. Black, Brown, bring this… body… to the medbay. I’m going to send another transmission to the Darwin.” He hastily walked back to Administration, where he sent a third message.

Moments after he had sent the angry rant, a voice pierced his ears in his headset.

“WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK!”

Upon hearing Brown’s panicked voice, White instinctively grabbed his side arm. He heard gunshots reverberating through the walls of the ship.

“HE JUST FUCKING KILLED HER! FUCK!”

White’s eyes grew wide and he ran out towards the Medbay. As he vaulted over the Dining Room’s table, he heard gunshots on his left, coming from the Storage Room. As he considered running there to assist Brown, he saw a body slumped against the wall in front of the Medbay. He walked up and saw Black, a torrent of blood spewing out of her throat. She held a hand against it, but something had cut her neck from side to side. Gurgling, her teeth dyed red, she looked up at White. 

He got on one knee next to her and with a hand on her shoulder, said “You’ll be alright, you’ll be fine.” White knew if she tried to talk she would accelerate the blood loss.

He got back up and walked into Medbay, seeing the medic writhing in pain on the ground. The body of Green was presumably in the body bag in the corner, but White’s brother was nowhere to be seen. The stretcher was toppled to the side and the third body, the burnt husk, laid still on the ground. More gunshots echoed throughout the ship. White, growing more panicked by the second, didn’t know which crewmate he should try to help first. He had no idea what was wrong with Lime, but he also didn’t know if he could stop the bleeding in time to save Black’s life.

* * *

Brown ran through the ship, stopping just to turn around and shoot a few rounds at the walking corpse. It was flailing its arms around, wielding a tiny but deadly scalpel. Brown was covered in blood from when the corpse had swiped the scalpel at Black’s throat.

Brown heaved after unloading a full clip towards the creature, hitting with only half the shots. Even then, the bullets had done nothing to stop the crisped corpse of Captain White.

“Why won’t you DIE!?”

After reloading, they tried aiming for the head, but they soon realized it only made the creature angrier. Out of spite they ended up chucking the pistol at it, the blunt weight of the weapon staggering it just long enough to allow Brown to escape its grasp. As they ran backward, Brown pulled out their plasma pistol and shot at the creature. It didn’t hurt it either, so they ended up also throwing that weapon at it, before bolting away towards the nearest door.

Entering into Administration, Brown locked the doors behind them, hoping that the creature wouldn’t have the mental or physical capacity to unlock them from the other side.

“Okay, keep calm, keep calm…” Brown took a few deep long breaths, then went on to the weapons locker to grab a few grenades. They looked behind them at the glowing green table with the map on it. Sensors indicated three life forms in the Medbay, one life form in Administration and two life forms in Navigation. Brown’s eyes grew wide and they became filled with dread upon the realisation.

“Oooh, fuck.”

Brown tried to call Cyan, screaming in their communicator. No response. Gunshots resonated through the thick door of Administration. Brown clicked on a grenade to activate it and held it firmly, ready to throw if necessary. They rushed towards Navigation to try and save Cyan.

* * *

Cyan shot at the creature several times, to no avail. 

“What the hell!” she screamed as she held up her weapon, aiming for the head this time. The creature swinged forward, hitting the weapon away, causing it to slip away towards the opposite corner of the room, under a console. Cyan held her arms up to try and stop the creature, grabbing the wrist the held the scalpel, but the protuberance on its stomach moved on its own and tried to grab the pilot’s belly. She sidestepped and punched the creature in its left flank, where the spleen would have been, which did nothing except hurt her hand.

Cyan felt the burning pain in her fist, as if she had just punched something hard like bones, but she had specifically aimed under the ribcage when punching. The creature swiped at her again, vomiting coagulated blood in the process, covering the piloting consoles, the floor and Cyan’s pants.

The pilot jumped down to try and grab her weapon, kicking back towards the creature to prevent it from grabbing her. She finally picked the firearm and then turned onto her back and help up a knee to block the monster as it jumped down on her. She emptied the whole clip into it, bursting its neck and face as the bullets passed through the massacred burnt head of the walking corpse.

As she ran out of bullets, the creature seemed to stop for a moment. Maybe she had succeeded in killing it.

“Cyan…” a voice called her.

Cyan moved her head to the side to see past the creature on top of her, only to see Brown standing in the doorway, clutching their chest with one hand. While she was shooting the monster, she hadn’t heard the door open and she hadn’t seen her crewmates coming into the room. Blood seeped from Brown’s chest, who had been hit by one of Cyan’s bullets after it had passed through the neck of the creature.

Brown looked at her, dropped something, then fell backward into the corridor between Navigation and Administration. As Brown laid dying on the ground, the grenade rolled into the room, next to Cyan and the burnt monster. 

Cyan’s last words were uttered in a quite angry tone.

* * *

White kneeled down and grabbed a nearby wall, trying to stabilize himself as the ship was shaken by the explosion in Navigation.

“What happened!?” he screamed in his headset. No response. “Brown, come in! Cyan, come in!”

Next to him, Lime coughed up blood and cried loudly, his whole body convulsing and distorting. In the corridor behind, Black closed her eyes, her hand still clutching her bleeding neck.

“Warning,” blared the ship’s alert system, “collision imminent. The pilot is requested in Navigation. Warning, collision imminent. The pilot is requested in Navigation. Warning, coll-”

“BROWN, COME IN! CYAN, COME IN!” White screamed, furious and panicked.

His watch alerted him of an incoming transmission. It was Purple's message warning them to not touch the corpses.

In the end, no one prevented the collision.

* * *


	16. Split Crew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can the remaining survivors trust Corporal White? Can they even trust each other? Blue and Red try to survive on the A.U.S. Sigurd while Orange and Purple try to survive on the A.U.S. Darwin.

**XVI**

Blue kept her hands up as she was face to face with White’s firearm. “Hey, no need to shoot anybody, mate. We don’t want any trouble.”

“You fucking bastards. You’re going to tell me everything or I swear to God I will…” he held the barrel of his firearm against the helmet’s glass.

Red, from the side, interrupted him, “Buddy, you’re not going to go far with that. We’ve seen those things, firearms won’t do shit to help you.”

White lifted the welding torch against Blue’s belly and pushed her with it, incentivising her to move back into the tight corridor.

“Red shut the fuck up,” asked Blue, politely. “These two have more than enough firepower, I don’t think being a quirky asshole is your best course of action right now.”

Red, still holding the pocket knife behind his back, let out a surprised, “wait, these two?”

Behind White, another crewmate walked out of the room. She was holding a heavy plasma rifle and her neck was covered with a thick plastiglue bandage. The surprising amount of dried blood on her clothes showed that not long ago she had been bleeding profusely. She slouched against a wall and her eyes showed tremendous signs of physical fatigue, but she soldiered on.

“Look, we do not want any troubles with you. I am Officer Blue, pilot of the Darwin, this is my crewmate, Science Officer Red. We’ve had trouble on our ship with a shapeshifting monstrosity, which destroyed our outside communications system which is why we couldn’t warn you in time.”

White didn’t seem to relax one bit, keeping on his guards. Behind him, Black turned her head to look in the other direction of the corridor, keeping an eye out in case someone else tried to rush them from the other side.

“I am… Corporal White. This is my crewmate, Specialist Black. We were sent to retrieve an artefact that you apparently failed to contain. We have lost some members of the crew and for now I am holding your crew responsible for their demise.”

Blue wanted to argue, but the gun was still pointed her way. “I… I believe we can, and probably should work together right now. You have firepower and we have knowledge on the monsters. You can court-martial us later or whatever if you want, but right now shooting each other is only going to be of help for the monsters.”

White stood in silence for ten seconds, then simply stated, “agreed,” before lowering his firearm. Black, however, kept her rifle up, even if it wasn’t pointed directly at anyone.

* * *

“There has to be something we can do to increase their oxygen efficiency.”

“Well, Red often said the filters were fickle, maybe you can work on that?”

“Great idea!” Ghost Green concentrated on the filter, moving her spectral head through the grate to see inside a filtration system with a handful of dried dead leaves. It wasn’t much, but if they could make the oxygen system more efficient, it would be tremendously useful for the survival of the remaining crewmates.

Ghost White and Ghost Yellow wandered into the Greenhouse, where they saw the other two dead crewmates trying to accomplish tasks for the benefits of the surviving crewmates.

“Wow, you really, you can interact with the physical world?”

“Yes! Pink showed me how!”

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

* * *

The inner Airlock door opened with a threatening woosh. Danger, peeking from the doorway of Communication, peered into the Storage Room and saw a foot appear from the direction of the Airlock. Another foot followed and both were connected by a pair of legs. Above the legs, nothing. Orange, watching Danger’s camera feed through the screen of her communicator, gasped at the sight of the torsoless legs, then went to muffled her mouth with her wrist, only to hit the visor of her helmet with her stump. She was still not fully used to having a missing hand and with the stress she had forgotten that she was wearing a full body suit which already muffled her voice. Danger kept watch for a few seconds as the legs walked slowly in front of the corridor. Orange pulled the little robot in and hid under a desk with it, waiting for the footsteps to go away.

“It’s going to be okay darling, it’s all going to be okay. Trust me Danger, with me you’ll be okay.”

Orange sent a call to the other crewmates whispering in her helmet, “does anybody copy? There’s a pair of legs on the ship. I repeat, a pair of legs just entered through the Airlock.”

Purple was the first to respond, “I see it on the cameras, it’s slowly walking by Administration.”

“Blue, Red, are you two okay?”

No response from Blue and Red.

* * *

The two crewmates still had their hands up, even though White wasn’t pointing his weapon at Blue’s head. He hadn’t told them to lower their hands and still he wasn’t telling them to relax, so they kept a non-threatening position.

They were hearing Purple’s and Orange’s voices in their helmet and both chose not to respond yet.

“Our medic, Lime, was alone in the Medbay when he was attacked by a walking corpse and eventually died there. Cyan and Brown weren’t with us when the ship was wracked by an explosion. We can assume they were killed by, or during the explosion, I checked the Medbay’s console after patching up Black and it showed both Cyan and Brown as flatlined. I tried accessing the medical lockers to get some blood packs for Black, but Lime got back up and attacked us. We ran away and hid in here, until you two showed up to my doorstep.”

Blue and Red looked at each other and then back at White, nodding.

“Our priority right now is getting some blood for Black before she falls unconscious. She’s a tough warrior, but even she has limits.”

“Double-speak mode,” whispered Red, which caused his suit to send his voice through the comms system and through the speaker outside of his helmet. “Sounds like a good plan, I’m sorry, we’re still surprised to see you two, we had hoped there were still people alive on the ship but we didn’t want to be too optimistic and end up disappointed.”

Purple and Orange stayed silent. They were listening quietly to Red’s conversation.

“Cyan, Brown and Lime are gone, with at least one turned into one of those things. That’s not good.”

White turned to the Science Officer. “Keep their names out of your mouth. All this wouldn’t have happened if your crew didn’t mess up.”

Red’s eyebrows lifted. He didn’t respond.

Slowly, the four crewmates made their way down into the dining room below the private quarters. Black had seemed to have trouble breathing and she sat on a chair as soon as she could, holding the rifle ready and looking through the doorways of the small room. White led the way towards the Medbay, his firearm ready and pointing forward. He passed the Medbay door and leaned on the wall with his weapon ready. Blue and Red followed, then Black stood up and walked at the back, periodically looking left, right, behind and ahead, trying to prevent any nasty surprise.

White pointed to Blue, then to the door. She understood that he wanted her to open it and check first. She hesitated. He pointed his weapon at her. She went in front of the door. The collision had severely crippled the ship’s electrical systems and thus some of the automated doors were off. She grabbed the handle and slowly, carefully pulled each half to the sides. When the opening was a few centimeters wide, she gazed inside, approaching her helmet to the door so she could see more inside the room.

She pulled further, until the opening was large enough for a head to go through. “Looks clear,” she whispered, before opening the doors completely. “Can you go in first? I don’t have a weapon?”

“And I don’t have a helmet,” White whispered back.

Blue walked in slowly. Red could see her hand tremble. The room’s lights were still on, but several neons had been shattered. Most of the equipment had been smashed, as if a rampaging bull had run through the room, trying to make itself a door big enough to escape. The floor was covered in blood and viscera, which made unnerving sounds when Blue stepped on them. Still, everything was still and no monster appeared to be hiding in the shadow, as far as they could see. Red and White were peeking in through the door, watching the room attentively. 

“By the way, they can mess up their anatomy and fit in places humans can’t traverse usually.”

White thought for a second. “You mean like in the ventilation shafts?”

“Yeah, like that.”

“Mates, I think we might have a problem,” announced Blue. Her arm, shaking extended towards the corner of the room with a finger pointing to the white cloth covering a still mass.

White walked, weapon pointed at the shape. “That’s the third corpse we retrieved from your expulsions. At least, I think it is.” He stepped forward and swiftly grabbed the piece of fabric, pulling it off and jumping back ready to shoot. On the ground laid the burnt husk of the imposter. 

Red and Blue moved back upon seeing the corpse. “Maybe it’s faking, be careful White.”

“We had a shit time with her back on our ship, keep your weapon ready if she tries to get up.”

White scanned the room. “Lime is gone, but so are the corpses of my brother and of your Navigations Officer.”

Red grabbed his head, or rather his helmet and leaned back against a wall. Blue lifted her arms and gestured with what appeared like a mix of exasperation and dread. “It’s already bad we have to deal with some new infected, but now our old problems are coming back…”

Black stood in front of the doorway, her head turning from one direction to the other. She tapped Red on the shoulder, who turned to her. She clearly wanted to talk. She cupped one hand against her ear and moved her eyes around, simulating the act of listening. Then with her hand she wagged two fingers back and forth to imitate someone walking, then pointed the corridor leading to the Engines.

“Are you saying you heard footsteps coming from this direction?” Red’s question caught White and Blue’s attention.

Black’s response was a short nod followed by holding her rifle up towards the gloomy corridor.

White, hurried up, looking for the refrigerator with the blood packs. He grunted with anger upon finding it wide open, with the packs slashed open. It was then that he realized the amount of blood on the ground was too much for it to be only from Lime’s body. “New plan,” he announced. “How’s the Medbay on the Darwin? You still have blood reserves?”

“Yes and no,” declared Red. “The blood reserves are still there, except for one bag, but since we know the imposter, our former Medical Officer, tampered with one bag, it is entirely possible that the others are contaminated. However…” Red looked at the sorry state of the room. Someone, maybe White, Lime or Green, had destroyed a large part of the room’s consoles and tools. “... our Medbay’s equipment is mostly intact. Someone could give her blood.”

“Good. Let’s pay the Darwin a visit.”

* * *

“Fuck, Purple, fuck!”

“Orange, I want you to take a deep breath and relax.”

“How the FUCK do you want me to relax? Legs are casually strolling by themselves on our ship! My friends are killing each other and I lost a fucking hand and I’ll never see my family again!”

Orange stopped talking abruptly and then her sobs quickly filled Purple’s helmet. For a whole minute, the internal comms network of the ship was nothing but sobs and whimpers. 

“Orange, listen to me,” Purple finally said. “I know, it’s bad, but you need to keep your cool if you want to make it out alive. You want to go home and see your family and I know that you can and you will”

“Awww, fuck, fucking legs, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You are one of the strongest humans I’ve met in my life, you are remarkable and smart, you are an amazing person and you WILL make it out alive, you understand?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“You want Danger to make it out alive too, don’t you?”

“I mean, yeah.”

“Danger can’t make it out without you.”

Orange looked down at the little robot in her arm. Its camera was turned to face her.

“If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for Danger.”

“.... okay. I will.”

“Good. I want you to make your way here into Security. Alone in the ship you are too vulnerable."

Orange went silent. Purple waited for ten or fifteen seconds, then talked again.

"Orange? Are you there?"

"I am," she said, her voice suddenly calm.

"You don't like the idea of coming to my position, is that it?"

"I don't know if I can trust you."

"I don't know if I can trust you either, but it would be better if you were here with me. If you are indeed not a monster, I don’t want you to be killed by a pair of legs at the other end of the ship, knowing that I could have protected you.”

“... Alright. You said you had a visual on the cameras, you’re in Security, right?”

“Yes, I can keep an eye on the legs. They walked into Administration.”

“They could be anywhere by now, using the vents.”

“No no no, remember, we locked the sectional vent walls. They can’t change room using the vents.”

“Okay. You’ll tell me if you see it coming out of Admin, right?”

“I will. The Lower Engines have been broken in by the collision with the Sigurd, so if you want to get here the best bet would be to go through the front of the ship and then through Cafeteria.”

“When should I go?”

“The sooner the better, we don’t know how long the legs will be in Admin or if other monsters might enter through the Airlock.”

“I’m on my way.”

Orange dropped the little robot beside her and he cautiously peeked out the door. She followed soon after, checking left and right for any sign of activity. She heard noises that could have been someone walking and then made her way right through Shields.

“Orange, keep talking so I know you’re okay.”

“I’m in Shields, some of the lights here are off, this place is creepy as fuck. There are bits of burnt corpses.”

“New or old corpses?”

“Old, when Yellow blew up. Fuck, the corridor leading to Navigation is fucking dark.”

“Are the light systems off?”

“Not all lights, I don’t know- I don’t like this one bit.”

“I see on the cameras, the hallways in front of Admin and Medbay are bright, but in front of Navigation and Security…”

“... Purple?”

“Yeah, no, it’s just, the hallway in front of Security was well lit like a minute ago, last time I checked. Some of the lights have dimmed. Wait up I’ll go put my flashlight in the doorway.”

“No no no no, I need you to keep focused on the camera, to make sure that the legs aren’t going out of Administration!”

“But I really want to keep myself safe too and it’s best if I can see through the camera in front of my room.”

“But if you put a bright light at your door, isn’t that going to announce to anyone passing by that there’s someone in Security?”

“...”

“Purple?”

“Wait, I’m thinking about it. Fuck this is a bad situation.”

“I know, we should ask the Brain! Brain, why are the lights going out?”

“L-i-ightss goingg doooown… Engines-engines-engines damamamama- energy consum-m-m-ption outw-w-weigh prod-d-d-d-”

“Ah, fuck.”

“M-m-mainten-n-n-nance requi-red in React-actor rooooom.”

“Orange, get your ass here we need to take care of the energy problem.”

“Is it safe to come?”

“Yes, hurry up, I need to go to the Reactor Room but I don’t want to go alone.”

“Okay, come one Danger let’s go. I’m exiting Shields. Fuck it’s dark. I’m gonna try to hurry but not too much, I don’t want to be too loud while walking.”

“Hurry the fuck up.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not stashed up in a secure room with cameras and a fucking flamethrower.”

“Shut up and walk, the sooner you get here the sooner you’ll be under the protection of those same cameras and flamethrower.”

“I’m passing by Greenhouse, that room is well-lit.”

“Brain must be prioritizing O2 production considering there’s so little left.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“What was that?”

“I said, I hope you’re right.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that I los-”

“Purple?”

“O- nge? I -- an’t --”

“Purple? Purple!? Fuck! Brain! Internal communications are really not the place to cut energy from! You big electrical asshole!”

“-range, I don’t hea- -ll, it keeps-”

“Yeah, I know it keeps messing up, stupid fucking brain, smart AI, my ass.”

“-clear! You c-”

“Oh shit, oh fuck, Purple! The LEGS ARE IN WEAPONS! PURPLE, FUCK!”

* * *

“The ship is down an engine. That’s why everything is going down. The Brain is prioritizing important machines, keeping base stuff at the minimum. Yellow, you know how to fix that, right?”

“In theory yes. In practice, I’m a ghost so I have legit no idea just how much influence I can have on the machines, even with the meditation mind stuff you showed us.”

“We can divert energy towards certain systems, I checked the panel. The Brain is routing energy mainly to navigation, gravity, life support, shields and weapons, with every other systems or subsystems working a sub-capacity.”

“Weapons are at full capacity?”

“In case there are asteroids coming this way. The shields should stop most impacts but it’s always best to blast them before they hit us, shields aren’t invincible. You’ve seen a great example of that with the ramming of the A.U.S. Sigurd, our defensive systems aren’t made to protect against a head on collision with another ship of similar size. Plus, the Brain didn’t try shooting at it because the Sigurd is a fellow A.U.S. vessel.”

“Why the big spike in Navigation?”

“The Brain is trying to slow down the spinning induced by the collision. Which, honestly, not a bad call. If the ship were to keep spinning like that, it might mess up the remaining crewmates, causing dizziness and nausea, giving an advantage to the imposter and their fucked up alien physiology.”

“Even then, not all systems are working at full potential,” noted Ghost Yellow. “See, the ship is sending as much juice as it can to Shields, but they aren’t primed correctly. I think that was messed up during the collision.”

“I’ll go to Shields,” proposed Ghost White. “I know how the system works. I can prime them.”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to bring the system back to full capacity? This might cause the Brain to send more energy that way.”

“Then control the energy output here. I’ll bring the shield back to full capacity and you can put the energy transfer on hold until needed,” he said before floating away, exiting the room through the wall.

“Hey look, Communications are going down.” noted Ghost Pink who floated in front of a little screen.

“Everything is going down,” responded Ghost Green. “The reactor is slowly losing power so now the Brain is keeping systems active in order of priority.”

“What’s the number one priority?”

“Shields and Weapons, a.k.a. protecting A.U.S. property.”

“Fuck that, put life support in first priority.”

“Already on it.”

“So, what’s up with the reactor?”

“The collision pretty much K.O.d Lower Engine, but it also did a number on the reactor and I think the Brain stopped it to prevent radioactive spills.”

“Is... a radioactive spill a real problem here?”

“I don’t think so, everyone is suited anyway, if the spill was large enough to damage the crew through the suits, then, well, the reactor would simply be, you know, blowing up at that point.”

“And now the reactor can’t start back up without human action, and if it doesn’t do so soon, the ship will run out of oxygen and everyone will die.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Then we need to get to that. We can try to do that at least.”

“Oh, I don’t know if we can,” butted in Ghost Yellow.

“Why not?”

“To restart the reactor, you need to activate the two digital sensors. As a ghost, we can click buttons and we might be able to rewire panels or whatever, but I’m pretty sure we can’t activate a digital scanner with no physical digits.”

“Oh, that’s not good,” said Ghost Green, gloomily.

“So, for the survivors' sake, we have to hope that two crewmates reach the reactor before it’s too late and reactivate it...”

* * *


	17. Energy Crisis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue and Red are coming back onto the A.U.S. Darwin. Will they get back in time?

**XVII**

“We have to get rid of the body,” exclaimed Red.

“Why, because she might get back up? Didn’t you burn her up to prevent just that?” asked White.

“Captain White had been burned as well and that didn’t stop him from getting back up,” added Blue.

White pondered for a moment. “I think getting rid of it might be the good call then.”

“But I don’t understand why she isn’t getting up and why fire knocks them down if it’s not killing them completely,” noted Red.

“You believe there could be some regeneration?”

“Maybe. Maybe we should take a sample out of it.”

“Excuse me?”

“I want to grab a little sample, to study in the Darwin’s Medbay so we can understand the creature better.”

“I’m not sure I want you walking around with a sample of that monster.”

“Why?”

“Because…” White paused. “... you could use it to infect someone else.”

“That’s dumb. We have interacted with these shits for longer than you have, we know more about them than you do. If I wanted to infect someone, a little burnt bit wouldn’t be of much use. These things can split in half and both halves are independent and lethal. They could rip out the last digit of a finger, or spit out a bit of guts. Grabbing extra meat is unnecessary for the imposters.”

White didn’t appear glad about that argument, but eventually he nodded. Red grabbed a nearby scalpel and dug in the supplies for a little container. When he eventually found a small solid glass cylinder with a screwing top, he cut off a centimeter of flesh from the dead creature. While Black nervously looked out the corridor, White kept his focused on the still body underneath the white cloth. 

All three crewmates jumped as they heard a few shots. Black had shot into the corridor leading to Engines. They all turned to her and she looked back at them, gesturing to White. She pointed her eyes and shook her head, then made a few gestures with her free hand. White quickly looked back to Red and Blue with a grin. “Finish your work, Red.”

“What was that about?” whispered Blue while Red nervously finished cutting the little bit of skin.

“Suppressing fire,” whispered White. “She didn’t see anything but if there is anyone there, she wants them to be afraid that they’ve been seen. Come on, hurry up Red.”

Black shot a few more times in the empty air.

“Is that really necessary?” whispered Blue.

“She knows what she’s doing. The plasma shots light up the room where she shoots and she has more than enough shots in one cell before needing to reload.”

“I’m done, I got my sample.” Red screwed the top in, locking the little bit of burnt flesh.

“All right, you two bring the corpse to the Airlock.”

“What! Why us?”

“Because you interacted with these shits for longer than we have, you know more about them than we do.”

Red opened his mouth but didn’t respond. Blue looked around the room for something to manipulate the body with, that would keep them far enough in case it did wake up. She finally came out with a long leather strap or belt. She tied it around the corpse’s ankle, while it was still covered by the white sheet. She passed the strap to Red. 

“Here, man, you pull her.”

“What, why?”

“You’re stronger and I found the belt.”

Red sighed, then grabbed the strap, keeping it as far as he could from his body, then walked out backwards. White and Black stayed back to back, Black aiming towards Engine and White aiming towards Red and Blue. Red was unhappy about that setup.

“Why aren’t you on both sides of the group? You’re not covering us with that position.”

“We don’t trust either of you, I’d rather risk you two getting killed than have you backstab us while we’re busy looking out.”

Red groaned, then continued to pull the corpse. Blue stepped into the Dining Room first, looking nervously at the exit corridor. “Dining Room clear.” She then went towards the Storage, followed by Red and then White and then Black. “Storage Room clear.”

Black, Blue and White watched as Red threw the body into the Airlock, before jettisoning it out. Red watched closely in the window as the body flew away.

“Boy, I sure hope no one grabs that body and brings it onto their ship,” he said turning to the rest.

Black stepped in his direction, but was stopped by White lifting a hand in front of her. Black was fuming, but White shook his head.

White walked to a nearby wall and activated the suiting station. A cylinder slot opened in the wall and White stepped in, dropping his firearm and welding tool on small side shelves next to him. Parts of his space suit were coming from the floor, walls and ceiling and closing in around him. Black scanned the room while waiting.

“Wow, military A.U.S. ships can do that?” asked Red.

“Most don’t.” White’s response was direct and succinct, as he came out wearing a much heavier suit than Red and Blue. His suit had metal plating on the chest and shoulder and a thick helmet with a luminous vizor.

Once White was out, Black walked in to put on her own suit, leaving White to scan the room and watch over Blue and Red. She came out wearing a similar militarized space suit, 

All four crewmates were now sealed in their suit, ready to step outside. Blue and Red were looking out into the flickering hallways, hoping to see if anything approached, but also hoping not to see anything.

“Wish we could have suits like these,” whispered Blue.

White stepped into the airlock and waved the others in. Black was the first to follow, then Blue and Red quickly rushed in.

They nervously looked within the dark corridors of the Sigurd as the inner Airlock door closed before them. They saw no one, but nevertheless they felt as if something was watching them.

* * *

“Or--nge! Orange answ--” Purple’s voice was barely audible. 

The ghosts were hard at work trying to redirect power towards Communications. 

“Yellow, do you know what this panel works?”

“Oh, that one’s tricky, it’s probably the oldest tech in the room. The good thing though is that we can literally pass through the panel’s casings and fix it from the inside. Damn, I should’ve become a ghost ages ago, it makes my job so much easier.”

“Yeah, but you’re also dead.”

“But I’m much less stressed out now. I can do my chores with no stress whatsoever.”

Ghost White entered Electrical through the wall.

“There were two survivors on the other ship.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah, after priming the shields I looked out the window. Red and Blue are walking outside with two crewmates from the Sigurd.”

* * *

Purple helplessly watched the camera feed as light flickered through the ship. 

“Orange?” she tried calling her again, and still received no response. “Ah, fuck it.”

She got up and walked out of Security, seeing no reason to stay in that room if the cameras didn’t show an advantageous view over the ship. She looked at the gauge of the flamethrowers. Three quarters of the fuel had been used so far.

* * *

The four crewmates slowly walked across the Sigurd’s hull. White still held both of his weapons, even though their firearm qualities were null in a vacuum. At least he could still use the metal tools to inflict blunt force trauma if it came to that. Blue, Red and White seemed really glad that Black’s plasma weapon worked in outer space, as she scanned the surface of both ships in case there were any movements.

The four survivors walked up to the site of the wreckage, seeing the twisted metal of the Sigurd’s wrecked cockpit and before them the large hole on the side of the Darwin leading into a destroyed engine room.

“I feel like we’re gonna have to go back home on your ship,” declared White. “You have another engine, but we’ve lost all navigation capacities.”

“Can’t you get in with your suit, set up the travel with the ship’s computer and then exit the room and let it run itself?”

“Look in there, see those blast marks on the floor? It wasn’t just the collision that destroyed it, the room was hit by an explosion. I doubt any console in there remains in good enough condition to navigate the ship.

“And we don’t have the same fancy Brain that your ship has. If we were to navigate back home on the Sigurd, if the navigation consoles were even still functional, someone would need to stay in this room to make it go interstellar. They wouldn’t survive the jump.”

They peered into the destroyed rooms, wishing to see nothing moving in there.

“Do you know if anyone was in your Navigation room when it blew up?” asked Blue

“Hypothetically, two of our crew members and potentially the walking corpse of my brother. I lost communication with both Brown and Cyan at the same time, not long before the collision.”

Seeing no one or nothing moving within the wrecked rooms, the four crewmates jumped onto the hull of the Darwin. 

Black gestured to the group and pointed upwards, letting the other see the detail she had noticed. Globs of blood floated a few meters above the ship, not too far from the Airlock.

“Good call,” responded Red. “Don’t touch the blood.”

“Don’t you want to collect a sample of this too, science boy?” asked White.

Red didn’t respond. The group carefully avoided the floating blood until they reached the Airlock. While Blue and Red worked on opening the Airlock, Black noticed a nearby glob of blood split in two parts. The smaller half was pushed out away from the ship, reactively pushing the larger half towards the ship, specifically towards the crew.

The Airlock opened. Blue, Red and White entered swiftly, while Black lingered out for a few seconds, watching the blood floating down, before joining in with the others.

As air filled the Airlock, Red slipped his hand in one of the suit’s pockets, which caused White to draw his firearm at him.

“Woah, calm down please, I’m just getting a light.”

White looked through the window of the inner Airlock door and saw that the interior of the ship was indeed pretty dark. Blue followed suit and soon enough the team had two rays of light accompanying them.

The door opened, letting them enter into the flickering Storage Room of the A.U.S. Darwin. The floor wasn’t particularly clean, considering all the recent events, but Blue did notice some fresh-looking bloody footprints leading out of the Airlock and towards Administration.

White flicked the tip of the welding torch, reigniting the little flame now that they were in an atmosphere with oxygen in it. It wavered weakly due to the amount of air left in the ship, but it was still enough to feed the flame and render his weapons functional again.

“You,” he said, pointing at Blue, “you go first. Then Black, then you,” pointing at Red, “and I close the march. Guide us to the Medbay.”

Blue went forward, anxiously moving her flashlight left and right as she made her way towards Administration.

“Warnnnnnn-n-ning Reactoooo-” The Brain’s voice fluttered out of the intercoms, weak and unstable.

“I think there’s a problem with the Reactor.”

“That seems to be the case,” agreed White. “We’ll verify that after Medbay.”

“If there’s a problem with the Reactor, I believe it should be the number one priority. Giving your mate a blood transfusion isn’t going to help her make it out alive if the Reactor blows up in the middle of the procedure.”

“Noted. We are still going to Medbay.”

They were interrupted by the noise of boxes falling. All three crewmates looked back to see Black leaning on a barrel, barely holding up.

“Science Officer, assist her until we get to our destination.”

Red did as he was told, helping Black get back up. She placed an arm on his shoulder, keeping her other arm firmly holding the rifle.

The group traversed the Cafeteria then got to the Medbay, finding inside a well-lit room with burnt marks all over.

“The lights aren’t flickering here,” noted White. “Any theories as to why?”

“No idea,” shrugged Red as he helped Black get on a chair with wheels.

“Preferential energy allocation,” responded Blue. “The problem with the Reactor, it must be losing power. The lighting in non-essential rooms, hallways, Storage, Cafeteria, it’s all going to shit because the ship is sending electricity in priority to rooms with important functions. The Brain must be prioritizing life support rooms like Medbay and O2 and the lights here at a full capacity because it knows that medical procedures need precisions that don’t work in darkness.”

“Huh. Can you get in contact with the Brain?” asked White while standing in front of a console screen.

“I don’t know, I would assume the communications are not a priority and have been let down for now.”

“Huh. Is that why you haven’t been able to put us in contact with your colleagues? Officers… Orange and Purple?”

“I…” Blue didn’t know what to say.

White moved aside and turned to face her and she could see on the screen behind him, the vitals of the crew. Green, Pink and White were categorized as D/C, Yellow as DEAD and the remaining four as OK.

“You could have told us on the Sigurd that you had two other survivors. Why didn’t you?”

“You didn’t ask,” stated Red.

“Don’t shift the blame when you’re clearly in the wrong, it’s crass.”

“... We didn’t if you could trust you.”

“And do you trust us now?”

Neither Blue nor Red responded.

“That’s alright, neither do we trust you. And now I think we should take a look at the Reactor, yeah?”

“You only came here to check vitals?”

“I’m not stupid, I know if the ship starts pleading in a dying voice to check the Reactor, then we better go check the fucking Reactor. Black, you stay here. You two, with me. Lead the way.”

Black pushed the ground to wheel herself into the corner of the room, where she had a good view over the vent and the door. She made a thumbs up gesture to White, who exited the room. Blue and Red followed, the door closing behind them. The three crewmate traversed through the Upper Engines Room, where the lights flickered weakly. The engine was much quieter than they were used to, an audible proof that the engine system were being powered down. 

They arrived at the intersection between the Reactor Room and the Security Room. In front of them was the locked hermetic door leading to the Lower Engines Room. The door was slightly dented inward. Blue pointed towards it. "That dent can't be from the collision, right?"

"The doors closed after the crash," noted Red, "to prevent loss of atmosphere. They definitely got dented after that."

"Someone trying to break in?"

"Officers, we can get to the bottom of that later but now we have a Reactor to fix."

All three entered the Reactor Room, which was still basked in a faint red tint. Blue and Red quickly went to the main console and brought up the status report. White surveyed the room, shifting his focus from the two crewmates to the door back and forth every few seconds. He noticed that one of the vent grates was opened.

"Starting the Reactor is going to be pretty simple, but it's also going to necessitate two people on the handprint scanners," explained Blue.

"Do you need me for anything?" asked the soldier.

"Nah, the handprint scanners will only respond to our handprints, since you're not a member of the Darwin's crew."

White assumed that his military clearance would have superceded the A.U.S. mainframe's parameters, but he didn't think it was necessary to inform them of this fact right now.

Blue and Red worked on the main console for a few minutes while White glanced anxiously around the room, when suddenly some lights flashed into the corridor outside. White tapped Blue on the shoulder and put an extended finger over the front of his helmet to tell her silently to stay silent. The two officers noticed the light in the corridor and hurried away from the console and shut off their flashlights. All three hid in the upper corner of the room, behind the ventilation grate that was still closed. Blue and Red crouched in silence while White stood behind them, his back to the wall and his weapons drawn.

Two figures entered the dimly lit room and the two officers quickly recognized Orange and Purple, who hadn't noticed them in the corner. A little robot rolled behind them.

"Just get the fucking thing working," growled Orange.

Purple silently went to the console. Blue knew that the Communications Officer would notice that somebody had begun to process of starting the reactor, so she turned to White and gestured a "what do we do now?"

White let out a loud "ahem", which startled the two newcomers. Orange aimed her flashlight towards them, while Purple grabbed the handle of the flamethrower and shouted aggressively. "What! Who!? Where!? Show yoursel...ves Blue? Red? You in the suit?"

White held his pistol towards Purple, but his welding torch was still pointed towards the back of the two nearby officers.

"Holy molly, Purple, Orange, you're okay!" exclaimed Blue. "Or are you... you mates haven't, you know, turned, have you?"

"I'm good," responded Purple, "which is more than I can say about you three. Who's in the big metal suit?"

"I am Corporal White. You must be Communications Officer Purple, and that's Humanities Officer Orange, right?"

"Right... You're one of the survivors of the Sigurd."

"Mates, I know this reunion is fun and all," interjected Red, "but now that we're all here and no one appears to be a disgusting creepy monster, can we get back to starting up the reactor?" 

Orange and Purple watched them warily, then Purple nodded. She continued the reactor start sequence, and once it was ready to start, a message popped up. "Potential radiation leak. Start anyway?" Purple typed in "y". She then looked towards the other three and then stared at the handprint scanners next to them.

"We'll handle this one, you and Orange get the other," proposed Blue.

They agreed. Each team gathered around a scanner. Purple and Blue each ungloved a hand and then stared at each other through the room while putting their hand down. A blip resounded in the room and the faint red light turned blue. The reactor powered up and soon enough the lights came back in full force, as well as presumably the rest of the ship's system.

"Brain, status report," ordered Purple.

"The reactor is now operational at full capacity. Powering all systems now. Potential radioactive leak in the Reactor Room, be advised that you shouldn't enter the room without protective equipment."

Blue and Purple both put their gloves back on as quickly as possible. If the crewmates were overjoyed with the power being back up fully, they didn't let it show. There was clear distrust between the two groups. White pushed Red in the back with his firearm. "You two, go join the others."

Blue and Red hesitated, but seeing the firearm and the welding torch was incentive enough to go towards the other two crewmates. Purple gave them a concern look through the visor of her helmet, but she didn't object to them standing with Orange and her. The four crewmates on one side of the room looked at Corporal White on the other side.

"Good, you're all here. You four and I need to have a full conversation. And we will have that conversation, but in the Medbay."

White walked out of the room, keeping an eye on the flamethrower but also glancing outside to make sure the way seemed clear, then he gestured for the group to follow him. Blue and Red followed, but not the other two, who seemingly needed more convincing.

"Hey, I know they might seem like military assholes, but I'm pretty certain they haven't been infected and they have guns, so right now I believe it's our best bet to stay with them," argued Blue.

"We have more chances to be picked off by the monsters crawling in the vents if we stay split into smaller groups," added Red.

"Yeah and if we're all together, we can all keep an eye on each other," responded Orange with a brusque tone."

"...yeah, that too."

They finally agreed, so all five crewmates and one robot made their way towards the Medbay. The well-lit corridors were much appreciated by the nervous survivors. White knocked rhythmically on the door before opening it, to advertise his identity to his colleague and avoid being blasted upon entering. When he entered the room, he saw the other soldier slouched on her chair, her gun resting on her knees. He rushed off to her side and kneeled beside her chair.

"Oh no," lamented Red, "is... is she?"

White removed her helmet and opened the latch on his wrist to free his hands. He checked her pulse and then let out a sigh of relief. "She's alive. She must have lost consciousness. To be fair, it's astounding that she was able to stay awake so long after all the blood she's lost."

"What happened?" asked Orange, who sympathized with the other crewmate that had seemingly been maimed by an imposter.

"Scalpel to the throat, I barely managed to close it up before she bled out." He paused and then stood up, turned to the Darwin crew. "You two mentioned some blood packs?"

"Yes, but we also mentionned that at least one was tampered with by the creature, we have no idea if the rest are safe."

"I know, but I don't trust any of you fully. If that thing is as insidious as you two said, any of you could be infected right now and give her the infection."

"What about your blood?" said Purple. "You afraid of needles?"

"For fuck sake don't be ridiculous. If my own blood didn't come up to me as the number one choice from the very beginning, it's because I know our blood types. She's A positive and I'm B positive, we're not compatibles."

"I'm A positive," stated Red.

"Same," added Blue and Orange at the same time. Then they smiled and pointed at each other before saying "jinx!" at the same time. The smiles quickly faded in the oppressive atmosphere of the ill-fated ship, but they both appeared to enjoy this little moment of levity.

Purple shrugged. "I'm B positive and my blood was missing from the fridge anyway. But it's nice to know that you and I could save one another if need be, Corporal."

White nodded, then looked at the other three. Blue, Red and Orange. "We could either take your blood, or take it from the available packs. Either option have a potential risk. Red, you still have the burnt sample. As Science Officer, you must have some knowledge of how this lab works. Can you look at it and find a way to differentiate a healthy human from an infected one?"

"A sample? What sample?" Orange's tone was a mix of suprise and apprehension.

"I grabbed some burnt flesh from a creature's body when I was on the Sigurd," he told Orange who gave him a horrified look in response, before shifting his focus back on White. "Medecine and human biology were Pink's field of expertise, not mine... but I think I can manage."

White had read his file, he knew that Science Officer Red's field of expertise were xenogeology and xenoecology. Luckily, the scientist had ample working experience in laboratories and if anything, the Brain's extensive thinking abilities might prove valuable.

Red dropped the container with the sample on a nearby table, next to a microscope. He took out a tray of surgical tools, hoping to get a thin slice of flesh to observe it.

"What are you doing," probed Orange, scrupulously watching over him.

"I am going to make a slide to check under the microscope."

"Are you good at making slides?"

"I have never made one in my life. Back in college I prepared sample for other students that did the slides for their research project, so I have kind of an idea of what this involves, but cellular and microscopic study has never been my forte."

While he prepared his workstation, Purple called out to the group. "Mates, I think we have a problem."

She pointed at the screen with the vitals on it. The four other crewmates watched the screen with dread as they noticed that Green had changed status from D/C to OK.

"What the fuck..." muttered Red.

"Same," said Blue and Orange in unison, this time on a much somber tone.

* * *


	18. Science Experiment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Green is apparently back on the ship.

**XVIII**

“Is it in any way possible that this could be a computer mistake?” asked Purple

“Yes, but probably not,” answered Red.

“We picked up her body floating in space. Later on, when we visited the Medbay with your two friends, her body was missing.”

Orange, standing in front of the vitals screen, looked puzzled. “How exactly does this work? Why is Yellow Dead, but Pink and White are D/C?”

“The Brain is scanning the ship continuously for the… huh… life forces? I don’t know exactly what it scans for but-

* * *

“Life force?? Mate are you stupid!” Ghost Pink screamed into the void while Ghost Green looked worriedly at the surviving crewmates in the room. “It’s not scanning freaking ‘life forces’ it’s scanning for vital signatures based on each crewmate’s average vital signs.”

“Vital signs?”

“Heart rate, body temperature, respiratory rate, blood pressure and the ship adds other parameters such as oxygen saturation, breath chemical composition and facial recognition to identify the crewmates within the ship.”

“How does it measure blood pressure?”

“Each crewmate has a little medical chip that keeps track of their vital signs. When the crewmate dies, the ship knows pretty quickly when they die and it’s visible on the computer. Yellow’s body exploded, but parts of it are still embedded in the walls next to Communication, the chip must still be somewhere there. But the other bodies were jettisoned out, causing the chip to be out of the range of the Brain’s medical sensors.”

“Medical sensors… Could the vitals be used to track people into the ship?”

“With fully-working Security and Medbay, it could be done. But Security was wrecked and no one knows the workings of the Medbay like I do, or, well, did. The time it would take them to program a working tracking algorithm would allow the creatures to pick them off one by one.”

* * *

“-I don’t know exactly what it scans for but it knows when we are alive or dead, D/C has to be for when we’re too far out of the ship.”

“And when someone is ejected, that must disconnect them from the system.”

“It has to be linked to our medical chips, right?”

“Probably.”

“Green has switched from D/C to alive, which I assume means she’s back on the ship.”

“Oh, I got an idea!” Red interjected. “Brain, Green is listed in the vitals as ‘alive’, right?”

“Correct.”

“That means she’s on the ship, right?”

“Correct.”

“Where is she?”

“On the ship.”

“No, but where on the ship?”

“... Error, monitoring systems damaged. A technician is needed in Security.”

“Oh, right.”

“Our Security Room has been thoroughly massacred”, said White.

“Our?”

“That’s a sentence from one of my brother’s earlier communications.”

The other crewmates didn’t respond.

“Green is on the ship then,” he finally added.

“And two halves of one of your crewmates are somewhere around the ship,” noted Red.

“One,” precised Purple.

“One?”

“We burned the legs and locked them in Navigation. Speaking of which, the hermetic panels within the ventilation shafts have been compromised.”

“How compromised?” 

“The legs vented out of Administration and attacked Orange near the front of the ship.”

“Brain? How is the status on the ventilation shafts’ hermetic seals?”

“All hermetic seals are currently closed.”

“Are you certain?” asked Purple

“Affirmative.”

“Could it be possible then that they were opened during the power outage? When the reactor was turned off after the collision?”

“It is possible.”

“Then, it’s possible that other intruders might have travelled through the ventilation shafts. Could it be possible that some of them could have entered the ship through the vents in the Lower Engines?”

“If they did, air would have leaked out as they entered,” noted Red. “Brain, have there been changes to the remaining atmosphere since we last looked at the situation?”

“There is currently… 36% remaining atmosphere.”

“Well shit. Brain, how much time can we survive before departure? Consider two additional crewmates in your calculation, we picked up two survivors on the A.U.S. Sigurd, Corporal White and Specialist Black.”

“Accessing A.U.S. military employee files, adding Corporal White and Specialist Black’s last known vital signatures into calculation. Considering current parameters, the ship will run out of breathable air in approximately seventy-two hours. The interstellar jump between the Theta system and the Asteroid CSC7 takes approximately eighty hours.”

The moral in the room, which was already quite low, took a drastic dip. The crewmates nervously looked at each other, and especially at Purple and White, the two armed crewmates in the room. White noticed Blue, Orange and Red looking at him, then looking at Black sitting in the back.

“Don’t you fucking dare even think about it,” he said, lifting his firearm. Purple pointed her flamethrower at him, her face showing apparent unease. “If anyone in this room is gonna get sacrified to save the rest, you can be damn fucking sure it’s not going to be me or my crewmate. You got us all into this mess when you mishandled the artefact, one of you four will pull the short straw if it comes to that.”

“It doesn’t have to!” exclaimed Red. “There’s plenty of oxygen left on the Sigurd! Well, maybe not plenty, but enough to fill a few bottles and bring it back here.”

The tension seemed to suddenly lift in the room, at least a little. But Purple brought the spirits back down when she stated the obvious. “What about Green? The creatures don’t need oxygen, but if they mimic us and take over bodies, then they have lungs. Green is out there in the ship wasting our remaining oxygen.”

White turned his head towards her. The thick metallic helmet made it hard to see his facial expression, compared to the other crewmates’ clear visors. “I suppose that would be a priority then. The longer the monsters stay on the ship, the more air they waste.”

“Who will go out and hunt? We can’t let your friend alone.”

“I’ll stay and keep an eye on her, obviously,” stated White.

“I can stay here too, check up on the sample I picked up, try to find a way to identify the creatures,” added Red.

“Then the hunting party would be us three?” Blue glanced at Orange and Purple. “What if there are more than one of the creatures? We’ll need more weapons.”

“You could start by giving me the plasma cutter, I still have the energy cells on me.”

Blue looked at Orange, then Purple who offered a slight nod, then back to Orange. She withdrew the cutter from her belt and threw it at Orange, who was caught by surprise and almost dropped it.

“Woah, for real? I wasn’t expecting you to give it so easily.”

“I just figured you might need it more than me, what with the missing hand and all. If anyone objects to this, they can just grab it from you. I doubt you’ll have time to reload it by yourself before that.”

No one tried to take the weapon from her hand. Red got to his workstation where he finished preparing the slide of burnt flesh. Blue, Orange and Purple congregated by the door. They were unsure about the plan, but it seemed as good as it could get. The plasma cutter was reloaded and then Orange securely held it up with her remaining hand.

* * *

Ghost Green, Ghost Pink and Ghost White travelled through the Navigation room of the Sigurd. 

“Woah, this place is creepy.”

“Green, we’re ghosts.”

“Oh yeah, I guess there’s nothing to fear here anymore.”

“I wonder if we’ll find other ghosts here. They apparently have some dead crewmates too. Keep your eyes sharp.”

The three ghosts arrived into the Sigurd’s Greenhouse. 

“They’re going to need that oxygen to survive,” declared Ghost Pink, grimly.

The three ghosts grabbed a number of empty bottles and started filling them with oxygen, using the room’s air pump.

While they were on their oxygen quest, Ghost Yellow stayed on the scientific ship, watching over the energy levels and checking for tasks that needed to be done quick.

* * *

Black’s breathing was quiet, but regular. White walked in a circle throughout the Medbay, glancing at times between his injured crewmate, the ventilation grate, the door of the room and the scientist.

“We’re in the Greenhouse,” informed Purple on the comms. “We’re making sure that the hermetic panels are back in place in the ventilation system.”

“Any news on the creature?”

“We haven’t found it yet.”

Red joined the conversation with a request that took White by surprise, “Can you vent out the air in the Medbay?”

“Excuse me?” blared White.

“We’re all wearing suits, mate, calm down. Purple? Can you do that? Not too long, a few minutes should be enough.”

White stood next to Red, watching him intently while holding his weapon ready.

“You better have some good fucking reason.”

Red switched to a room channel so only White would hear him, “I do, but I don’t know who in the crew I can trust with my information.”

As he switched back to a shipwide channel, White seemed to relax. Red was seemingly showing him some good faith, even though he hadn’t actually told him anything.

“You want us to vacuum the Medbay?”

“That’s right.”

“...Okay, give me twenty seconds.”

Red was hunched over a microscope, his fingers tapping rhythmically against the countertop. White stood in the middle of the room watching the scientist attentively, until he heard a soft hiss coming from the corner of the room. The light atmosphere in the room was slowly being sucked out of the vent, but all three crewmates in the room still had enough air reserve for at least twenty minutes. White switched the room channel.

“What’s stopping them from keeping the air out and then locking us in?”

“Because they couldn’t control the doors’ security system. The Security room was busted, so if anyone finds a way to lock doors remotely, it’ll be pretty easy to take back door control from the door panels.”

“Atmosphere in the Medbay at 12%,” declared Purple. “Going down. You should be at close to 0% in… forty-five seconds.”

Red waited for forty-five seconds, watching the microscope closely, while White stood patiently in front of him. He glanced towards the door and then towards the vent, then he checked his unconscious crewmate. The room became silent as the atmosphere emptied. Red seemed to take a few mental notes, until eventually he pumped his fist triumphantly.

“You can let the atmosphere back in, mate.”

Red and White heard a hiss coming through the vent. Air was coming back.

“Did you get what you wanted?” asked White.

“I did.”

“What’s up,” asked Orange. “What happened?”

“I have some new information on the creature, something that could be helpful for…”

The door of the Medbay opened. Red and White turned to the door, White holding up his weapon pointed at the empty corridor. Both crewmates held up their breath in anticipation, but somehow the absence of a threat was even more alarming.

“Red? Red come in?”

“Please tell me you came back to the Medbay.”

“No, we’re all still in the Greenhouse, why?”

The lights went out.

“Shit,” someone muttered in the comms.

Red glanced around the room, the only illuminations being the luminous visors of Black and White, basking the room in a soft blue hue. He took out his flashlight and flicked it on, but it didn’t turn on. He angrily banged it against the counter and fiddgeted with it for a few more seconds.

“Did the light go out for you too?” asked Blue with a nervous shake in her voice.

“You three,” ordered White, “move to Electrical and fix this, now.”

“Why don’t you fix it yourself?” responded Purple.

“As the highest-ranked military member of the A.U.S., I command you to-”

Noises came out of the vent behind, which cause White to turn and shoot. A loud cry came out of the vent as White kept shooting. As Red hit the flashlight again, it turned on, illuminating a figure in front of him. 

Green was standing in the middle of the room, glaring at him with clouded white eyes. Thick blue veins protruded across her distended and purple skin.

* * *


	19. The Terminus option

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As soon as one emergency dies down, another one pops up. If the crew doesn't eliminate the imposters soon, the ship will soon fall apart.

**XIX**

Blue, Orange and Purple all had their flashlights out.

“What do we do? I hear gunshots!”

“We should go to Electrical first. In the darkness we would only end up with bullet holes if we were to go to the Medbay right now.”

The three crewmates and the robot rushed out of the Greenhouse, nervously pointing their flashlights all around as they passed through Weapons and then through the large Cafeteria.

“Red! White! What’s happening?”

No response, but more gunshots resonated through the ship. They continued their frantic course through Storage, then into Electrical. Blue and Purple panickedly jumped on the main electrical panel, both trying to fix the problem at the same time. Orange behind them pointed her light shakingly at the door. While the other two were focused on trying to restore lights and screaming at each other for being in the other’s way, Orange heard a faint scraping coming from the dark corner of the room, behind the main console.

Orange slowly walked deeper into the room, turning the corner and peeking behind the main console. She gasped. Slowly, a blood-soaked Green crawled out of the vent, never breaking eye contact with her. The bottom of her body was still hidden inside the ventilation shaft but her torso, arms and head were all visible in their gory details.

“You killed me,” she whispered, freezing Orange’s blood. “All of you, you executed me.” She paused, waiting for Orange, who was frozen in place. “We eliminated the newcomers, soon they will avenge me.”

“Orange?” Blue peeked from the main console at her crewmate. Lights came back on, illuminating both crewmates. Orange turned to face the pilot, her face overtaken by dread. Blue gasped, showing that she understood that something was wrong and she walked up to her crewmate who turned her head back to the vent. The vent was empty.

“Green, I saw Green, she was there.”

Blue glanced at the corner of the room, and while there were no undead crewmate anywhere to be seen, the vent was surrounded by bloodstains. “Why didn’t you shoot her, Orange? You have the plasma cutter.”

“She said they had killed the newcomers.”

“You… Oh, they must have assimilated Black and White. Oh fuck, that means the creatures will have firearms now.”

“She said we killed her.”

“What?”

“She’s angry because we sacrificed her when she was innocent. She’s right to be angry”

“Orange, get a hold of yourself!” Blue grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her a few times. “She’s not Green, not anymore! She’s trying to mess with your head! Come on, we have to get there, maybe Red has managed to escape!”

Purple stood next to the console, waiting for the other two to get going. Blue pulled on her crewmate’s arm to bring her with them and they quickly made their way towards the Medbay. Blue quickly related to Purple what Orange had told her and in response, she armed the nozzle of the flamethrowers and kept it well in hand. 

As the door opened, their vision was filled with the brightness of an open flame. White’s suit, especially the boots, were covered in blood and he pointed his weapon forward at the trio. Black laid across the ground behind him but Red was nowhere in sight. In the middle of the room was a patch of meat that might have been a body, or part of a body, currently burning.

Purple, pointing her weapon at the soldier, considered what to say but then decided to stay silent.

“Lime,” he stated, pointing the welding torch at the corpse. “The torso, it popped out of the vent while Green entered through the main entrance.”

“Where’s Red?” asked Blue

“Fucker ran away. In the commotion he picked up Black’s rifle and then ran off with it.”

“Is she…”

“She’s still alive, the creatures tried to get to her but I managed to keep her safe.”

“What about you, are you safe? That’s a lot of blood you got on your suit.”

White didn’t look down, but he obviously knew that his boots and legs were covered in blood. The suit was made to survive the vacuum of space and thus was fully hermetic and his military suit was reinforced by thin straps of metal.

The three crewmates remembered what Green had said and thus looked at White and Black with noted apprehension.

“Mates!” Red asked through the comms “Blue? Orange? Purple? Are you okay?”

“Yes Red, we’re in the Medbay.”

“Oh shit, be careful! Green is in there!”

“She’s not here anymore, just a pissed off White and an unconscious Black.”

White joined the call, “did you think I wouldn’t survive this fight, Red? Is that why you ran out?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” he answered, indignant.

“I am not. I take every detail into consideration, including the fact that we are running out of oxygen faster than we can replenish it and it would be beneficial for the survivors if one or two fellow crewmates were to be eliminated.”

“That’s… that’s not… Even if you were killed by the creature, they would assimilate you and you would still be breathing, that wouldn’t even correct the problem.”

“Maybe, but then you would have a valid excuse to send me out the airlock, and no one would defend the right to live of my fellow soldier.”

“Red, where are you?” asked Orange. “You shouldn’t be alone out there!”

“Or maybe he should,” proposed White. “This way, we can claim that he’s unlikely to not be infected and we can push him out of the ship.”

“We can’t do that!” cried out Purple, pointing her weapon up at the soldier. He responded by pointing his own firearm at her. Orange put her hand on the plasma cutter and watched the scene nervously.

“Mates, everybody calm down, we don’t need to shoot each others,” said Blue, holding her hands up at eye level to show that she had no violent intents. “There is still air on the Sigurd, why don’t we go there and pick up a few bottles of oxygen so that nobody needs to be ejected.”

“There’s still the Terminus option,” hinted Red.

“The what?”

“I thought it would be better if we gave it a name. The Terminus option, you know, not going back.”

Blue, Orange and Purple watched White for a moment, waiting to see how he would respond. After a few seconds of silence, “Like the A.U.S. Magellan.”

“The what now?” Orange’s eyebrow lifted with surprise.

“Officially, the Magellan suffered a technical malfunction which led to the loss of the ship and crew. Do you know why your mission statement didn’t include recovering material from the ship’s wreck?” He paused for effect. “There is no wreck. They aren’t floating in space, they haven’t crash landed on any of the system’s planets. The ship is completely gone, because it flew directly into the system’s star. Before reaching the system, we had no idea exactly what had caused them to sacrifice their lives and their ship, but now, I understand.

“Your so-called ‘Terminus option’, it’s not completely irrational.” He clenched the grip on his weapon. “But we are not there yet. As long as there is a possibility that we can succeed on the mission, we shall fight.”

“Why weren’t we told about the Magellan’s fate? Why were you?” Orange watched the soldier uneasily.

“That was classified information.”

“Okay… but you’re just a corporal. You don’t have that much clearance compared to a scientific crew.”

“True, but I have enough. And you can take off your hand from that plasma cutter.”

Orange opened her mouth, but said nothing. 

“She can do what she damn well please,” said Purple, still pointing the nozzle at White.

“Lower your weapon, Purple. I will not repeat it twice.”

“No, you lower your weapon. We don’t know how much we can trust you and everybody would be a lot more comfortable if you didn’t have that pistol pointed at us.”

“I’m not lowering shit. If you want to shoot me down like you did my brother, just do it instead of talking about it.”

Purple gasped, and watched White as he sighed. She couldn’t read his expression because of the thick metal helmet, but she felt a bit of relief as he tilted his head forward and lowered his firearm. Even Orange seemed to relax, slowly taking her fingers off from the plasma cutter.

Without a hint or a warning and blindingly quick, White lifted his weapon back up and shot forward. 

* * *

Red heard the gunshot through comms, a muffled hit collected by White’s microphone through his suit.

“What happened! Mates! Has Green come back to the Medbay?”

His crewmates were too stunned to respond.

* * *

Purple had a horrified look on her face. Eyes wide and mouth agape, she slowly turned her neck, but couldn’t see the hole. Orange, on her side, saw the hole cleanly. White had shot directly at the fuel compartiment on her flamethrower’s backpack.

“Just as I thought. You threaten people with a flamethrower but never lit the nozzle’s flame? How long ago did you run out of fuel?”

“Are you… FUCKING CRAZY?”

“Fucking headcase,” muttered Orange, quickly grabbing the cutter and pulling it out of her belt.

White shot at the plasma cutter, causing Blue and Purple to jump and Orange to scream obscenities as the cutter was pushed out of her grip.

“Mates, please stay calm.”

“White what the FUCK! What if I still HAD fuel? What if I didn’t light up the nozzle to avoid an unnecessary flame to preserve our dwindling oxygen? You thought about that?”

“I did. I told you, I take every detail into consideration.”

“And yet you still shot?”

“Yes. You were threatening me. Blowing up your fuel tanks would take out the threat. But I assumed this was unlikely and the more likely outcome was that you had no more fuel. Either I would call out your bluff or take out a threat. Both options were advantageous. Now stop being ridiculous and take off that bulky piece of junk.”

In all the troubles, Purple could at least see the one silver lining of taking off the heavy backpack, which she had been carrying off for several hours. Through the clear panel of her helmet, signs of exhaustion were visible. In fact, all crewmates looked overworked and tired, except for Black and White whose faces were concealed by their military helmets.

“How long have you been empty?” asked Blue.

“Ever since I burned off the legs.”

“Hands up mates, I want you all to-”

White’s helmet moved as he continued to talk, but no words came out. Blue and Purple looked at each other with a questioning look. They both said variations of “What is he saying?” and both noticed that they couldn’t hear the other.

Purple muttered a swear word, then took off her helmet. Then her eyes narrowed. “Green is in Communication.”

Orange started undoing the base of her helmet, but with one hand, it took her a few more seconds. Blue took it off as well. Purple repeated her information when both crewmates had taken off their helmet. She then looked at White and screamed “GREEN IS IN COMMS. WE HAVE TO GET THERE BEFORE WE LOSE HER TRACE.”

White’s helmet opened up, revealing his face. “Communications.”

“Yes.”

He looked back at the unconscious Black, then reluctantly waved the three crewmates away so they could go check Communications. Blue slid across the floor until she was behind Orange and she grabbed the plasma cutter. White pointed his weapon at her, but she rebuffed his threat with a simple “How can we dispatch the creature with no weapons, genius?”

White bit his lip angrily but then waved her out with his firearm. She grabbed the cutter, making sure not to point it at him not to make him angry, then the group made their way quickly towards Communications. 

Green was nowhere to be seen, but there was plenty of blood across the consoles, which had been damaged. Purple threw up her arms in exhausted anger. This wasn’t going to be just a simple repair.

“Mates.” A helmet-less Red appeared in the door frame, holding Black’s plasma rifle.

Blue pointed her weapon at him, but neither pulled their trigger.

“Hey, Red.”

Purple looked at him like she was going to ask a thousand questions, but then decided to focus on the damaged communication console. Blue and Orange instead did the questioning.

“You ran away with his friend’s gun.”

“Better in our hands than theirs.”

“You think they’re infected?”

“Highly doubt it. Right now, White is pretty much the only crewmate I’m a hundred percent sure is still human.”

“Why him?”

“Because he would have killed us all if he was one of them.”

“Then why not leave him the rifle?”

“Just because he’s human, doesn’t mean we can inherently trust him. This whole ‘military ship coming in to fix the situation when things have gone to shit’, I’ve seen enough movies to know that when this is all over, he’ll thank the survivors with a nice little bullet in the head.”

“Why do you think he hasn’t killed us all already then?”

“I… I’m not sure. He can’t handle all of us as undead monstrosities and if he starts killing us we’ll not cooperate, he’s working with us because he needs to, but as soon as he can go back home safely, he’ll get rid of loose ends.”

“We don’t know that for sure, Red.”

“The best case scenario is we all make it out alive, kill the monsters and go back home. The second best case scenario is we do like the Magellan and drive the ship into the star…” Red trailed off, his gaze empty.

“What’s the worst case scenario?” asked Orange, looking clearly unhappy with the second best scenario.

“They make it back home and assimilate all life on the Homeworld, the end of humanity and so on.” Blue’s grim gaze showed that she was equally unhappy with the situation.

“Yeah that’s not a good case scenario.

“The artefact,” finally muttered Red.

“What?”

“The artefact. It’s still in Pink’s body. The creature was jettisoned out of the Sigurd with the artefact in it.”

“Yeah, and that’s a good thing,” stated Orange. “... right?”

“The body will float around and eventually fall down on another planet, and then the A.U.S. will send another ship to retrieve it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. We need to retrieve the body and destroy it completely.”

“How can we destroy it?”

“Terminus.”

“Wait, you want us to risk our lives getting that body, and only then sacrifice everyone?”

“We don’t need to die to send the artefact into the star. We could just grab it, move close enough to the star and then throw it out. And of course, we’ll have to deal with the thing itself, it will probably try to fight us.”

“Why would it fight, we’ve burned her thoroughly,” precised Blue.

“That’s the thing… I saw something in the Medbay while studying the sample.”

Blue and Orange listened intently. Purple was still on the repair but she nonetheless had her ears focused on Red’s voice.

“We already know quite a bit about the creature. It can take over bodies, but it can also recreate and reproduce human cells. We’ve seen it deform the bodies of our crewmates, but it can also look exactly like us.”

“Yes, get to the point please.”

“You can’t kill it in conventional ways. Dismemberment, disembowelment, decapitation, organ failure, none of this stops them. We’ve seen what does though, and it’s fire. We need to cook them to stop them. And yet, that doesn’t kill them forever.”

“Vacuum. You asked us to vacuum the Medbay-”

“Blue, please, I’m having a moment here, can I be the one to explain my discovery.”

“Huh, yes, sorry.”

“It’s okay, I forgive you. But yeah, you got it right. When I ordered the vacuum in Medbay, I looked at the slice of burnt flesh. In absence of air, it started repairing itself.”

“But… why?”

“I truly do not know. Maybe oxygen is an inhibitor for cell restoration, maybe their cells are hardwired to function in specific manner in a vacuum. What I know is that the burnt flesh repairs itself in an empty atmosphere. White, I mean, Captain White, and Pink were both burnt and thrown out of the ship. But White had been out there far longer when it was picked up by the Sigurd. The other creature had been much more damaged and didn’t stay in the void long enough to repair itself fully. Which is why the first got back up and wreaked havoc on their ship, while the second stayed limp until we threw it out.

“But now the second creature is floating somewhere with the artefact and has probably repaired itself enough. It’ll be a threat when we pick it back up.”

“That could be the test,” said Blue. “We all give a sample of skin, burn it, put it in a vacuum and then see whose grow back.”

“Exactly,” said Red. “Purple, how are the repairs going?”

“Give me ten minutes.”

“Cool.”

Then there was a silence. The four crewmates glanced around for a minute, watching each other and watching the door.

“Soooo, huh.” Red spoke up but seemed unsure how to bring the next point. Blue and Orange turned to him, watching him inquisitively. “About the Terminus option.”

“No.” Orange told him.

“With every hour that passes, it becomes more obvious that-”

“I said, no.”

“You’re not in charge, Orange.”

“Neither are you.”

“No but I say we should talk about it.”

“Why, you won’t get unanimity.”

“Have you looked around mate? How long until the creatures cause enough to sabotage to kill us all anyway? And the Sigurd got blasted too, their atmosphere reserves aren’t full either. Even if we bring back oxygen from their ship, there’s no certainty that we’ll have enough for all six, especially with creatures roaming around and wasting air.”

“I told you before, I’m coming back alive from this mission. I don’t care if you want to sacrifice yourself, that’s not my problem.”

“We all want to come back alive. But we might not have a choice in the matter.”

“What about contacting the Homeworld?” asked Blue. “Should we ask A.U.S. H.Q. about our next course of action? Should we even inform them of all the shit that happens?”

“They sent a squad of goons to retrieve the artefact and maybe, arguably, probably, eliminate us,” responded Orange, “without even telling either crews about how dangerous the alien threat is. They might not even know how big the threat is, actually. Maybe they would fight even harder to acquire the artefact if they knew how dangerous it is.”

“I’m pretty sure the military crew knew more about the threat than us.”

“And yet they still picked up the floating bodies like a bunch of rubes. They can’t have known that much.”

“Maybe if we ask White he might tell us what they knew about the Magellan.”

“Maybe, but he’s playing his cards really fucking close to the chest.”

Gunshots resonated through the ship.

“White’s in trouble.”

“You think it’s Green?”

“I don’t know.”

“Purple, how are the repairs?”

“Gimme a minute, I’m almost done.”

More gunshots.

“Should we go and help?”

“He can take care of himself. Plus, splitting our group would only endanger everyone here.”

“Ah! Communications should be back up now. White! Can you hear us?”

Before he could even respond, the room filled with red lights. The Brain’s voice blared through the intercoms.

“Warning. Critical failure in the Greenhouse. Emergency repairs needed in the Greenhouse and Administration.”

“Oh fuck what now.”

Through the sound of the alarm, the crewmates heard the distant echoes of more gunshots. All four crewmates then put their helmet back on.

“White! Come in!”

The crewmates wordlessly ran out of the room, moving quickly through the Storage Room and then into the Cafeteria. As they approached, they saw Black standing in the corridor in front of Medbay, leaning against the wall opposite the Medbay door. She was awake, but still not at full strength.

“I’m alright,” said White on the comms. “The torso attacked us. I… I had to put it down.”

As the crew approached, Black spotted them at around the same moment as White walked out of the room. She pointed at them and White turned to face them, clasping his weapon.

“Emergency,” repeated the computerized voice through the ship’s speakers. “Failure in the Greenhouse. Emergency…”

“We need to reach Administration and Greenhouse at the same time,” declared Purple.

The six crewmates glared at each other. The group had to be split in two, but time was quickly running out and debating on the groups would waste valuable time.

“Emergency. Critical failure in the Greenhouse imminent. Emergency repairs needed in Greenhouse and Administration.”

Red saw White’s helmet turned towards him as he held Black’s rifle. He calmly dropped it on the ground and then walked backwards.

“Thank you for giving back what you’ve stolen,” said White in a calm, non-threatening tone that somehow made it sound even more threatening to Red’s ears.

“I’m going to Administration,” Red stated.

Purple saw him go, so she ran off with him. This left Blue and Orange facing Black and White. Black pushed herself from the wall and staggered towards the group, specifically towards the rifle. Blue and Orange moved back to give her space.

“We need to get to the Greenhouse,” said Blue as she watched Black bow down and pick up the plasma rifle.

“Get started, we’re behind you,” he said. “Purple and Red can handle stuff in Administration.”

Blue and Orange hesitated for a moment, until Danger, which had followed Orange up to this point, turned around and started rolling through the Cafeteria, giving little blips to call the crewmates to follow it. They followed, while White grabbed Black’s arm and helped her walk towards the Greenhouse.

“Is she gonna be alright?”

“She’s tough. She’s not going to be at full readiness until she gets more blood, but we found some adrenaline in the Medbay which should help her stay awake for a bit.”

Blue and Orange reached Weapons, then past that room turned right into the Greenhouse.

“We’re entering Weapons,” stated White.

The two crewmates of the Darwin got up to the main console, which needed to be rebooted. The damage was minimal, but enough to potentially grow into much more problematic issues soon if nothing was done to remedy it. Orange tried to enter a code but the numeric pad wasn’t cooperating.

“Red, Purple, do you hear me?” asked Blue. “We’re trying to type in the machine but nothing happens.”

“Yeah, we’re in Administration, it appears we have to give live authorization to allow you access to the emergency protocol. I’m putting my hands on right now.”

“Okay… Oh, yes, I see a green light on our side! Orange type in the code.”

“We’re out of Weapons now,” announced White.

Red was at the Administration console and his voice sounded shaky, nervous. “I don’t know if there’s anything else to do right now but- Fuck!”

Distant gunshots were heard through the corridors. Blue and Orange looked at each other and then froze. Then Blue noticed in the door frame, White standing alone with his weapons in hand.

“White? What is happening?”

“Let’s ask your friends. Purple? Red? How’s the situation?”

Purple’s voice came in, “Green just busted out of the vent, but Black shot her!”

“Wait, Black’s not with you?” cried out Orange.

The gunshots continued for a few seconds.

“I assumed the creature masquerading as your colleague had access to our communications, thus I made it believe both Black and I, the two armed soldiers, were coming here, which would have allowed it to openly attack Purple and Red.”

“But isn’t she almost dead?”

“With the adrenaline she took she’ll be as healthy and awake as everyone else on board for the next thirty minutes. Now take care of that oxygen issue before we all perish.”

Orange finished what she had to do on the console, eventually causing the red alert light to extinguish.

“You used us as bait,” chastised Blue.

“Correction. I used your two colleagues as bait.” He joined the shipwide channel, “Black, how is the situation.”

A series of taps came into the communications. Lacking the ability to talk at the moment, Black was tapping on her helmet to communicate.

“What’s that,” called out Orange.

“Morse code,” responded Blue. 

“That’s odd, because I’m pretty sure she could just type out a message and send it as a voice in the communication channel. This seems archaic and inefficient.”

“That’s because this communication wasn’t meant for us.” She turned to the Corporal, "what does O.K.F.F. means?”

The soldier’s helmet was still as he stared at Blue. A wail came into the comms.

“It means Okay, Friendly Fire. The mission was a success and there were no casualties, but there was an instance of friendly fire. Now come on, the Greenhouse is fixed,” he lifted his welding torch, “I have a monster to burn.”

He walked out of the room without even waiting for the other two, who hurried after him. As they ventured towards Administration, they heard a few more gunshots and then Blue and Orange received a private call from Purple. They discreetly answered it while walking behind White.

“Mates, Red just got shot. That crazy bitch, she got him like three times, there’s no way these were all accidents.”

“Is he okay?” asked Blue.

“Was Green with you?” asked Orange.

“He’s still alive, he got hit in the belly twice and another shot went through his thigh. The plasma at least burned through so his wounds are all cauterized. And yes, the creature bursted out of the vent and jumped at us, but it’s been shot several times and when it tried to crawl away, Black just came in and kicked it a few times before throwing it in a corner and shooting it again a bunch of times.”

Blue, Orange and White entered the room and saw the creature on the ground in one corner with Black harassing it, and in the opposite corner were Purple and Red sitting against a wall. The creature was bruised and battered, with several cauterized wounds on its joints. Neck, shoulders, elbows, knees and hips were all covered in burnt marks, making it difficult for it to move properly. Every time the creature twisted its anatomy in new ways to try and escape, Black stomped it and shot it some more. One arm had detached and grown little legs, like a caterpillar or a centipede, but the heavy soldiers had trampled the arm into a mushy goo with the thick metallic boots of her military suit.

With her back turned against the two soldiers, Orange talked into her helmet, then sent the recording as a private message to the other three crewmates of the Darwin.

“Those gunshots can’t be accidental. They’re culling us. With seemingly the last creature dead, they’ll want to get rid of us, both because we’re witnesses and because they know there might be imposters among us. We need to let them think they still need us. If anything, we cannot tell them where the artefact is until we know we can get the upper hand over them.”

Blue and Purple nodded after listening to the message. Red was concentrating on trying to ignore the burning pain in his guts. 

White threw out an empty bottle of medicinal alcohol he had picked up earlier in the Medbay and that he had dumped on the body before him, then lit the mangled corpse on fire.

“Oxygen levels dropping,” announced the Brain as the fire quickened the process of using up the ship’s remaining oxygen.

White turned to the science crew. Black kept an eye on the burning corpse.

“We are going to run out of oxygen before we manage to get back home. While we could draw straws to choose someone to jump out into the void, I think it’s much more sensible to send someone on my ship to retrieve some oxygen bottles. Especially since we would probably need to send two or three people into the void, otherwise.”


	20. Oxygenation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue and Purple are sent on the A.U.S. Sigurd to retrieve some oxygen for the surviving crewmates.

**XX**

Blue and Purple were getting ready to leave the ship. Both Orange and Red were injured so White had decided that the other two would be sent to retrieve oxygen bottles on the Sigurd. He also noted that Blue had been on the Sigurd before and thus would have knowledge of the ship’s layout.

White gave them a little briefing. “Blue, Purple, this mission is critical. You need to bring back as many oxygen bottles as you can carry. But most importantly, you need to keep each other alive. If either one of you comes back alone, it will be seen as a sign that you are potentially an impostor and you will be executed.”

Purple glared at him. “So if Blue gets attacked and dies or something but I manage to bring back the oxygen bottles, you’ll kill me?”

“Exactly. If your partner dies, we will see it as an act of treason proving your infected nature. And the same to you, Blue, make sure your partner stays alive.”

“That’s so fucking unfair. What if there’s an accident? What if she trips and dies, should I die for that? Or if one of these things comes out of nowhere!?”

“Then you better keep your eyes open and protect your partner’s back.”

He waved them towards the Airlock and they begrudgingly entered. Blue had the plasma cutter while Purple held a floodlight like a quarterstaff. It was connected to a full battery pack and could thus double as a high-intensity flashlight if needed. Black, Orange, Red and Danger were in the Medbay, connected through the comm network.

“Mates,” called out Orange, “keep in constant communication with us, if you see anything wrong, let us know.”

Blue and Purple stepped out, their magnetic boots keeping them anchored to the ship, while White watched them through the Airlock window. They travelled towards the back end of the ship, where it was connected to the wreck of the Sigurd. Every ten or so seconds, they talked to tell the rest of the crew that they were still alive. 

“Clear.” Silence… “Clear.” Silence… “Clear.” Silence… “We’re by the Sigurd, not one monster in sight.” They had no idea if any other creature remained in the vicinity. Pink had been thrown out a while back and was probably floating far away. Green had just been burned up and was currently locked up in a corpse tray in the wall of the Darwin’s Medbay. The two halves of Lime’s cooked up body had also been gathered and locked up in the Medbay. Yellow’s body was still caking the walls around Communications, but his head had been MIA since the crash. There were also the bodies of Brown, Cyan and Captain White that were still unaccounted for, but their prolonged absence suggested that they had been blown out into space during the crash.

And there was still the uncertainty on the remaining crewmates. Green had ominously claimed to have infected Corporal White, but the remaining crewmates of the Darwin agreed that it was probably a bluff. Probably.

“I’d like to check out the Navigation Room,” said Blue.

Purple nodded and they walked into the wreckage between the two ships, while keeping the communications up with the rest of the crew on the Darwin. 

“Is it still viable?”

“I don’t know. It’s been damaged by the crash, but there is also some internal damage from, I don’t know, some explosion or something.”

“Could that be the epicenter?” Purple pointed on the ground at a spot that did look like the point of origin of some blast.

“Yeah, that would fit.”

White chimed in, “is there any way the ship could be piloted?”

“I don’t know,” said Blue. “Maybe if I got here with my toolbox and a few hours it could fix the navigation systems, but even then that’s a big maybe.”

Once Blue was done investigating, they crawled out of the wreckage and back on the intact portions of the Sigurd’s hull. Then, Blue and Purple arrived at the Sigurd’s Airlock and entered the military ship without a hitch. Somehow, not encountering or seeing a single monster on the way was almost more stressful than the alternative. Even if the monsters were horrifying to look at, not knowing where they stood caused every shadow to be so much scarier. To make matters worse, there was definitely something fishy going on with the atmosphere within the Sigurd.

“Mates, the air here is green. It wasn’t like that before. What the fuck do we do?”

“Go to the Greenhouse,” said White, “you should be able to make a scan of the atmosphere there.”

Blue and Purple glanced at each other, then carefully made their way towards their objective in the ill-lit, cramped, creepy ship. Upon arriving in front of the Greenhouse door, they noticed something even more unsettling. There was something coating the floor beneath the door and it seemed to be propagating onto the walls.

“Ok now what the fuck.” Purple sounded even more exasperated than she had been over the last twenty-four hours.

Blue shook her head. “Hmmm. Hmmm-mmm.” She made Purple understand that she had no intention to touch the substance, especially considering that the hallways were too dark to make out what it was.

Purple turned on the lights on her floodlight-staff, revealing to the two crewmates that the ground around the Greenhouse door was coated in…

“Aaaaah, fuck, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, ewww.”

“What is it?” Orange’s voice sounded just as panicked as Blue’s sounded distressed.

“It’s flesh,” said Purple. Her voice sounded like someone trying their hardest to stop themselves from vomiting. “There’s flesh fucking growing on the floor of the ship. Ah, it’s all fucked up with blisters, it’s so disgusting” She turned to Blue. “Okay, okay.” She took a long breathe, then exhaled slowly. “We have to get in there, get your gun ready.”

Blue pointed the plasma cutter forward while Purple pressed the button to open the door. As soon as the door opened, more of the green gas flowed out of the room. They looked inside and were shocked by what they saw.

“Oh, that’s not good.”

“Holy shit. That’s messed up.”

Orange called out, “what? What is happening?” 

In front of Blue and Purple was a creature, humanoid in shape, kneeling on the ground. The bones of its legs were sticking out from its lower body, which was devoid of skin and muscles up to its pelvis. It looked as if it had fused with the floor of the ship, growing skin and tissue over it in a three meter radius. The creature was kneeling, it's back to the door, and both crewmates could see the distended skin of its back inflate as it breathed, like balloons made out of flesh over the two spots where lungs might have been placed in a human’s body. A long wheezing sound came out as the skin fell back onto its back and thick green gas could be seen coming out from the opposite side of the creature, where a head might have been. Its skin, as well as the flesh covering the floor, was red and covered with blisters.

Blue and Purple spent half a minute watching the creature breathe, which was apparently unaware of their presence. They had never met Brown, but even if they had, they wouldn’t have recognized them in the mangled deformed creature that kneeled in the middle of the room. 

“Blue, Purple, come in.”

“Orange, there’s a… thing, in the Greenhouse,” informed Purple.

“A thing? A monster you mean?”

“Yes, but I don’t know if it’s aggressive, it just kneels there and pumps green gas in the air.”

“The room is filled with flesh,” added Blue. “It’s growing on the floor and spreading to the walls.”

“We have to kill it.”

Blue carefully tiptoed on the fleshy floor, grimacing and whining in disgust. Luckily, the flesh didn’t seem to react to her boot. With her weapon pointed at the creature, she stepped into the room and circled it, until she could see its face. Purple glanced in the dark hallways around her, then carefully followed Blue inside. The room was disgusting, but seemingly harmless. At least, as long as they wore their hermetic suit. Blue had gotten in front of the kneeling thing, her hands shaking as she pointed the weapon at their head. Purple walked past Blue and got to the console, which had tendrils of flesh growing at the bottom, but the keyboard and screens were still unaffected.

Blue squatted in front of the creature, trying to get a better look at its face, while Purple initiated a scan of the ship’s atmosphere. The creature’s maw and nose had been replaced by what looked more like an exhaust pipe or the filter of an old-timey gas mask. Its eye sockets were hollow, but every once in a while something resembling the elongated tongue of a butterfly crawled out of the socket, swatted at the air, then rolled back inside. Blue also noticed that the creature’s arms had a shiny white hue. 

“Chlorine gas,” stated Purple. “It’s making the air poisonous to breathe. That’s also why its skin is all fucked up.”

“But how, how the fuck is it making chlorine gas?” Blue sounded distressed.

“I have no idea. Red? You there?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard. Chlorine gas is really not good. The question is, how is it producing it.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

“We’ve seen these creatures desecrate the physical anatomy of the corpses that they’ve taken over, it wouldn’t surprise me if they could modify a human’s internal organ into a basic chemistry lab capable of doing simple molecular operation. Chlorine is not generally present in A.U.S. ships’ atmosphere, but you could find it relatively easily in other places. If it got a hold of enough cleaning product, or if it grabbed large quantities of salt out of the food printers, it could in theory isolate Chlorine.”

“Shit,” muttered Blue, glaring at the creature’s arm. “We can’t bring that atmosphere back on the Darwin, this was a waste of time.”

“Not necessarily,” pointed out Purple, “The computer’s log says… Please, Blue, will you just shoot that thing already, it’s creeping me out.”

Blue looked at the creature and then pointed the cutter towards its head. A few dozen shots later and it bellowed pathetically as it fell to the side. The air was still thick with green gas, but at least it wasn’t being produced anymore.

“Thank you. As I was saying, the computer’s log says that six bottles of pure oxygen were filled up before the air became noxious.”

Purple pointed to the side, where a pile of heavy pressurized gas cylinders laid.

“Wait,” exclaimed Blue, “why did White tell us we would have to fill out bottles if they had already filled some bottles beforehand?”

White joined the conversation through comms. “We had not filled any oxygen bottles, as far I was informed.”

“Maybe we should test them just to be sure,” said Purple.

Blue and Purple connected each of the six cylinders one after the other to the Greenhouse console. All six were analyzed and contained a hundred percent pure oxygen.

The two crewmates walked around the limp corpse in the middle of the room as they brought each cylinder outside. They were pretty heavy, so they wondered if they might find a cart or something that would help them carry them all the way back to the Airlock. They walked carefully towards the Storage Room, where the Airlock was and where there was the most chance of finding something to transport their load. But as they were scrounging in the Storage Room, they heard the noise of the Airlock.

“Please tell me one of you has come to join us on the Sigurd,” prayed Purple.

“Nope,” stated White. “Black is unconscious again, Orange and Red are by my side in the Medbay. Why, do you need help?”

“Well, kinda, yeah, because the Airlock is being opened from the outside.”

Blue and Purple hid behind crates while continuing their conversation with White, trying as best as they could to not sound panicked.

The inner Airlock opened and the two scared crewmates peeped out of their hiding space, trying to see what was walking in without being seen themselves.

It lumbered into the ship noisily, arms and legs moving around it in chaos. It took several horrified seconds for the two crewmates to understand exactly what they were looking at. With four legs, five arms and three heads, what they were staring at was an amalgamation of corpses. Its body parts were in various states of decay with the most intact body part being the head of Yellow, tacked onto the creature’s back, turning around on fleshy tentacles like a periscope scanning the surroundings. The two other heads were accompanied by two mostly-complete bodies. Elbows and knees bent in the wrong directions as the mess of limbs grabbed walls, floor tiles and crates, pulling itself in whichever direction the head above deemed most important.

Everyone on the communications heard Blue stifle a horrified moan as she glared at the monstrosity. Purple bit the inside of her lips to prevent herself from screaming in horror as she recognized the mangled corpse of Captain White within the abomination. Blue and Purple both correctly deduced that the other body was probably a member of the Sigurd crew, but they wouldn’t have recognized Cyan even if her face hadn’t been obliterated by a grenade explosion.

The tension rose as all three heads started making noises. Crying wasn’t the right word for it, neither was moaning or screaming. It was an unnatural sound, more akin to machinery being sawed than to humans using their mouth. And yet, there was a strange unison in the three noises. While each head had been its own separate individual once, now there were one.

“Shit, I don’t even know if I have enough plasma cells left to cut off all of its legs.” Blue held the plasma cutter in one hand, while her other hand trembled on the side of the crate. 

Blue gasped and turned to Purple, who had grabbed her hand. “Blue, look at me.” She pulled her down behind the crate and looked her in the eyes. They had lost sight of the lumbering beast, but it made enough noise just crawling around that they still knew exactly where it stood in the room. “I know that this is a shitshow.” She sounded calm and reassuring, but there was a faint vibration audible in the back of her voice. “But this is going to be okay. We’re gonna get through this.”

Blue looked at her while in the background they heard the loud clangs of tools, crates and even a ladder being tossed or pushed down by the monstrosity. “I don’t know if we’ll make it out alive. Purple… I think we’re all going to die.”

Purple opened her mouth, but said nothing. The sudden calmness in Blue’s voice had left her speechless. Maybe she had grabbed hold of herself and was watching the situation objectively, or maybe she had given up and was accepting her potential fate. She squeezed Blue’s hand and stared her down. 

“Blue, look at me. We have survived this far, right? As long as we keep fighting, we have a chance to make it out alive and see our families and homes again.”

Blue pulled her hand away. “With all due respect, Purple, have you seen that fucking abomination back there? Have you seen the flesh covering the walls in the Greenhouse? I’m sorry, but even if we did have a chance to make it out alive, do you really believe that it is worth risking this shit going back home with us?” She paused, waiting for Purple to react or say something. When she didn’t, Blue kept talking. “There were eight of us, and then five others with the Sigurd, and already this thing has spawned nightmares that will scar me for the rest of my life. Do you have the slightest idea of how horrifying this might get if they happen to fall on a planet with billions of humans and countless other life forms?”

Purple met her eyes in silence, both crewmates thinking in silence while White jumped into the conversation. Neither were listening to a word he was saying. But both frowned when they heard the noise of the abomination getting farther away. They looked over the crates to see it crawling into the hallway that would lead it towards the Greenhouse. Blue and Purple looked at each other. They were both thinking about the oxygen bottles. If the crew was to have a fighting chance to survive against the creature, those bottles were crucial. 

“We need to lead it away from the Greenhouse.”

“I’ll do it,” declared Blue.

“No, I’ll do it, I’ll bait it away with the light or something.”

“And then you’ll get mangled to death and assimilated because you’re not going to fight that thing with a floodlight. I’ll do it, you find a cart or a trolley and get those gas cylinders back on the Darwin.”

Before Purple could object, Blue got up and away from the crates and aimed at the creature with the plasma cutter. She had no idea if she would have enough range to hit it, but she knew that at the very least it would make enough noise to draw it towards her.

She fired once and the line of scalding plasma made a slight burn on the skin of the creature, which stopped in its tracks. All three heads looked at her, showing a mix of fear, agony, despair and rage. With its echoed voice, it let out a blood-curdling cry as it lumbered back into the Storage Room and towards Blue. She shot at it a few times, managing to slow it down as two limbs fell down, then she ran away towards the Engine Room.

“Blue!”

“Just get the cylinders!” she screamed.

Purple hid behind the crates as she heard the atrocity crawl by her hiding spot, following Blue towards the back end of the ship. As soon as the beast was out, she searched the room for something that would allow easy transport. She found a utility chariot that had a magnetic hover function and seemed large enough for all six bottles, so she activated it and ran with it towards the Greenhouse. On her way there, the hallway suddenly lit up. She looked at the now-lit neon tubes with a confused look, but quickly got back on track.

As she loaded the goods, she realized that the chariot was actually only big enough for four cylinders. So she loaded four on it, then grabbed a fifth with her free arm. She glanced in the room at the still cadaver of the gas monster, then quickly made her way back to the Storage Room, lamenting the sixth cylinder that she had to leave by the Greenhouse door. The noise of the plasma cutter resonated through the ship, which was a sign that Blue hadn’t been killed yet. Purple entered the Airlock and went to press the button to close the inner door, but then she called out, “Blue! Get to the Airlock! I’m about to go out!”

“I can’t! Purple, you have to get back to the Darwin without me!”

“What! No! Blue! Blue!”

Purple, her hand hovering over the button, glanced at the three hallways leading out of the Storage Room.

“If I make it back to the Darwin without you, I’m gonna get executed, so you bring your dumb ass here RIGHT NOW, or I’m going to beat the shit out of both you and the abomination with my fucking floodlight!”

There was a lull in communication for a few seconds, but then Purple heard a plasma shot coming from straight ahead. Blue ran out of the dining area, her face wracked with fear and sweat. Not two seconds after she had rushed into the room, the beast followed suit, hopping and running on a few intact limbs and several amputated stumps. While she ran, Blue tried to aim back at the creature and shoot it again, but her weapon was empty. She threw the empty plasma cutter at it, hitting Yellow’s head, then she lunged towards the Airlock, sliding on the ground for the last meter.

Purple pushed the button so hard, she might have imprinted its shape on her palm, but the inner Airlock door closed just in time to stop the lumbering monstrosity. Purple then realized she had been holding her breath for nearly thirty seconds. She fell down in a sitting position as the Airlock vacuumed out the air to prepare for the opening of the outer door. Blue and Purple had to deal with two mangled heads watching them from the window of the inner Airlock door as they waited, which was really unsettling. 

“For a moment there, I thought you wouldn’t make it.”

“For the record, I also thought I might not make it.”

The two crewmates looked scared and exhausted, but they allowed themselves a moment to breathe and smile at their luck.

Once the outer door opened, they quickly ran out with the magnetic cart in tow. They assumed the creature would probably follow them outside as quickly as it could, so they rushed back towards the Darwin while looking over their shoulder every few seconds.

As they reached the intersection between the two ships, Blue jumped into the wreck.

“Blue, what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m ridding us of that abomination.”

“What? How?”

She jumped into the scarred Navigation Room of the Sigurd.

“I had enough of a headstart on the beast to go reactivate the engines, so I did that.”

“You WHAT?”

“I just had to press a few buttons, no big deal.”

She was now typing something in one of the navigation consoles. Some screens lit up in the wrecked room.

“You can wait for me in the Darwin Airlock, I just need to chart a course for this ship.

“What is happening?” interjected White.

“I’m sending the Sigurd into Theta Prime.”

“No, you are not. Stand down and get back on this ship.”

“With all due respect, I cannot let that thing live. Plus, Purple has the oxygen canisters so it’s all good.”

Purple didn’t know what to say, so she looked back across the Sigurd towards the Airlock door, to check if the abomination was trying to get out.

“Blue, we should really get going,” she added.

“I’m almost done,” answered the Pilot.

“I thought you said this place needed repairs.”

Blue switched to a channel that excluded the two soldiers. “I lied.” She switched back to the public channel. “I guess I was wrong.”

“Blue, Purple, get back here now!”

“I’m coming, I just need to… there, that’s good.”

The two ships trembled as The Sigurd’s engine roared. Blue looked up at Purple and rubbed her hands with a look of accomplishment. Purple, still holding on to the chariot and the cylinders, looked back at the Sigurd. The Airlock showed no signs of opening.

But before Blue could celebrate, a large dent appeared on the door of the Navigation Room. The two crewmates looked at the door with apprehension.

“Oh, shit,” were Blue’s last words as the door was busted open by the abomination. Chlorine-filled air rushed out from the doorway and into the vacuum of space, pushing Blue with such force that she hit a navigation console before colliding with a mangled wall. The creature was sucked out, straight forward. One of its arms tried to grab Blue but its velocity sent it flying by, towards the Darwin. It flew into the Darwin’s Lower Engine Room, which was as open as the Sigurd’s Navigation Room. 

The intense rush of pressurized air pushed the two ships from one another and Purple had to watch helplessly as the Sigurd moved away, an unconscious Blue pinned to one of the walls of its Navigation Room. The ship slowly turned according to its trajectory and powered up, slowly flying away from them.

“Blue!” she screamed, getting no response. Then, in the corner of her eye, she saw an arm coming from the hole in the Darwin’s hull. The monstrosity slowly crawled out towards her. Panicking, she ran towards the Airlock as fast as she could. She saw the creature lumbering towards her, which made her panic even further. She tried opening the Airlock door three times before getting it right and then managed again to get to safety moments before getting caught by the tangle of limbs and heads. It was only when she was in the Airlock that she realized she had gotten in with the chariot, but had forgotten the fifth bottle outside.

The creature outside was glaring at her again through an Airlock window. She looked at the chariot and the four oxygen bottles that she had managed to bring back. The inner Airlock door opened and she entered the Storage Room. Orange and Red stood by and Orange quickly grabbed the chariot with the oxygen bottles as Purple rolled it in. 

White stood in the middle of the room, holding his firearm, his expressionless metal visor pointed towards her.

“I know what you said before, but you heard what happened. I didn’t betray Blue. She was on the ship as it floated away, but for all we know she might still be alive!”

“If she is, she’s not responding.”

Orange moved in front of Purple. 

“You know this is insane, Corporal, right? They were in constant communication with us, Purple never acted in any manner that could be seen as suspicious. Blue made a mistake trying to steer your ship, that wasn’t Purple’s doing.”

There was a loud bang as the abomination tried to slam the door of the Airlock. Luckily, the shields were activated and calibrated, making it impossible for it to bash in the door as it had done with the door to the Navigation Room of the Sigurd.

“You hear that? We’ve got much bigger problems right now, we need to stand together if we want to survive.”

White stood in silence holding his firearm pointed to the ground. Red, who was slouching down on a nearby crate, holding his wounds, was nervously glancing towards White and then towards the Airlock. Outside, the pounding continued. White glanced through the windows of the Airlock doors, meeting eyes with the thing that used to be his brother.

“You make a convincing argument, Officer Orange.”

Orange let out a sigh and turned towards Purple, who smiled back at her. Then the room echoed with the loud sound of a gunshot. Orange saw Purple’s helmet shattered by the bullet as she fell down on her back, dead before she even touched the ground.

“But I am a man of my word.”


End file.
